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An application of catastrophe theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2016

Anthony Hughes
Anthony Hughes*
Affiliation:
Clifton College, Bristol BS8 3JH
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Extract

Popular expositions of the new subject of catastrophe theory have tended to concentrate on ‘soft’ applications, but, as I hope to show, it is perfectly possible to make a serious, important, and mathematically more demanding application intelligible to sixth formers with a minimum of differential calculus. The application is in that part of engineering science which deals with the stability of structures. Catastrophe theory produces nothing really novel in this field, but, by assuming Thorn’s theorem, which will be explained below, it is possible to make the whole subject accessible to those for whom Taylor’s theorem for a number of variables, and the associated concepts, are too difficult. Even for engineers already familiar with the results, catastrophe theory offers an attractive unity within the subject and can point to analogies in related fields.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 61 , Issue 415 , March 1977 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1977

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References

Page no 1 note † This material was presented in a lecture to the Bristol Branch of the Mathematical Association in November 1975.

Page no 7 note † I shall use “model” only to mean “mathematical model”, and shall not use the word to describe the original apparatus, which might, in another sense, be referred to as a model.