Saturday, 27 April 2019

{Catastrophe Theory}[26th September 1988]


[Redbook5:360-363][19880926:1545]{Catastrophe Theory}[26th September 1988]

19880926.1545

Professor Thom’s Catastrophe Theory,* so far as I can understand it, puzzles me in ways which perhaps have implications for Circles Analysis. Although he says that his theory or method is more qualitative than quantitative, it seems to me that what it does – in applications in the ‘soft’ sciences – is to make qualitative assumptions based on observation about the way things happen, and then to apply to these assumed phenomena or chains of events the ‘best fit’ from a limited number of geometrical (topographical) forms which can be represented in a quantitative fashion. But the usefulness of this is not obvious.


*[See [Redbook5:293][19880815:1628]{Cusps}[15th August 1988], including main explanatory footnote** & diagram]



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