Overview

In the 1960s a French mathematician named René Thom (1923- ) developed a mathematical tool known as catastrophe theory. Thom used his theory to study and make predictions of processes involving sudden changes. His ideas became popular with mathematicians and scientists in a variety of fields during the 1970s. However, catastrophe theory was sometimes applied to areas outside its scope, and for this reason it eventually became somewhat discredited.

Background

Scientists have found that there are two basic types of processes in nature: continuous and discontinuous. An example of a continuous process is the increase in temperature of a gas as it is heated. As one variable is changed at a constant rate (heat is added to the gas), a second variable also changes at a constant rate (the temperature of the gas increases). Because continuous...