3 ms·

The Charms of Catastrophe (1978)

44 points by mitchbob 2y ago

mitchbob 2y ago
https://archive.ph/UZsKg https://archive.ph/UZsKg
- drcwpl 2y ago
  This is fabulous, now I have a lot of reading, thanks for sharing
pvg 2y ago
The 'catastrophe machine' mentioned: https://www.geneva.edu/dept/chemistry-math-physics/physics-research/catastrophe-machine/index https://www.geneva.edu/dept/chemistry-math-physics/physics-r... Very easy to throw together or simulate.
PaulHoule 2y ago
Catastrophe theory developed a bad reputation pretty quickly, today there are many retrospectives of how various fields in the social sciences lost interest https://is.muni.cz/el/sci/jaro2018/M6201/um/48281991/RosserCatastrophe.pdf https://is.muni.cz/el/sci/jaro2018/M6201/um/48281991/RosserC... When i was studying physics in the 1990s with the famous conspiracy (more so than string) theorist Ron Maimon we talked about it and he said it was a pale shadow of the renormalization group approach to phase transitions that was developed just a little bit earlier.
madcaptenor 2y ago
Author is Martin Gardner - that might entice some people to click through.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
drcwpl 2y ago
It is also worth reading Chaos Theory and the story of the scientists https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-chaos-theory-and https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-chaos...
euroderf 2y ago
Wouldn't CT give Hari Seldon a way to predict discontinuous (revolutionary) political change ?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Jun8 2y ago
Interesting nugget: the Swallowtail Catastrophe (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SwallowtailCatastrophe.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SwallowtailCatastrophe.html), one of the seven possible, was named by the blind French topologist Bernard Morin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Morin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Morin). It was the topic of Salvador Dali’s last work (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swallow%27s_Tail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swallow%27s_Tail)
- drcwpl 2y ago
  The Swallowtail catastrophe is a beautiful work of art and theorem

44 points by mitchbob 2y ago

mitchbob 2y ago

https://archive.ph/UZsKg https://archive.ph/UZsKg

drcwpl 2y ago
This is fabulous, now I have a lot of reading, thanks for sharing

pvg 2y ago

The 'catastrophe machine' mentioned: https://www.geneva.edu/dept/chemistry-math-physics/physics-research/catastrophe-machine/index https://www.geneva.edu/dept/chemistry-math-physics/physics-r... Very easy to throw together or simulate.

PaulHoule 2y ago

Catastrophe theory developed a bad reputation pretty quickly, today there are many retrospectives of how various fields in the social sciences lost interest https://is.muni.cz/el/sci/jaro2018/M6201/um/48281991/RosserCatastrophe.pdf https://is.muni.cz/el/sci/jaro2018/M6201/um/48281991/RosserC... When i was studying physics in the 1990s with the famous conspiracy (more so than string) theorist Ron Maimon we talked about it and he said it was a pale shadow of the renormalization group approach to phase transitions that was developed just a little bit earlier.

madcaptenor 2y ago

Author is Martin Gardner - that might entice some people to click through.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

drcwpl 2y ago

It is also worth reading Chaos Theory and the story of the scientists https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-chaos-theory-and https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-chaos...

euroderf 2y ago

Wouldn't CT give Hari Seldon a way to predict discontinuous (revolutionary) political change ?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Jun8 2y ago

Interesting nugget: the Swallowtail Catastrophe (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SwallowtailCatastrophe.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SwallowtailCatastrophe.html), one of the seven possible, was named by the blind French topologist Bernard Morin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Morin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Morin). It was the topic of Salvador Dali’s last work (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swallow%27s_Tail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swallow%27s_Tail)

drcwpl 2y ago
The Swallowtail catastrophe is a beautiful work of art and theorem