Can we predict prison riots? Earthquakes? Stock Market Crashes?
Hailed by scientists as the most important intellectual development since calculus, catastrophe theory boldly suggests a controversial new way of predicting sudden, "unpredictable" change. Imagine being able to forecast the raising of oil prices by Arab nations, the outbreak of a revolution, or the erratic behavior of a schizophrenic. The brainchild of French mathematician Rene Thom, catastrophe theory uses seven basic geometric shapes to transform abstract concepts--fear, anger, love, hate--into concrete visual diagrams, or catastrophes, that represent patterns of behavior.
This vanguard book illustrated with thirty line drawing, explains the catastrophe theory to laymen, explores the controversy surrounding ti, and gives fascinating examples of how it can be used to understand problems in psychology, biology, politics, economics, and history that affect everyone.
