Dr. Auro Michele Perego received a BSc and an MSc in Physics from Università degli Studi dell'Insubria (Como, Italy) and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering - as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher - from Aston University (Birmingham, UK). He is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, where he leads his independent research group. His main research interests are: nonlinear science and the theory and applications of instabilities and self-organisation processes, fibre optics, laser physics, and photonic technologies such as optical frequency combs, optical amplifiers, optical sensing, and communication systems.

Introduction.
Prelude in everyday language.
Cosmic instabilities.
Cybernetics and control systems.
Hydrodynamic instabilities: Chaos and turbulence
Modulation instability
An act of creation
Bifurcations
Morphogenesis
Instabilities at the atomic scale
Quantum vacuum and the origin of perturbations
Instabilities in the head
Pillars of Hercules
Exponential nature
Universal forms
Riding the future
Becoming