This book aims to present to first and second year graduate students a beautiful and relatively accessible field of mathematics-the theory of singu larities of stable differentiable mappings. The study of stable singularities is based on the now classical theories of Hassler Whitney, who determined the generic singularities (or lack of them) of Rn ~ Rm (m ~ 2n - 1) and R2 ~ R2, and Marston Morse, for mappings who studied these singularities for Rn ~ R. It was Rene Thorn who noticed (in the late '50's) that all of these results could be incorporated into one theory. The 1960 Bonn notes of Thom and Harold Levine (reprinted in [42]) gave the first general exposition of this theory. However, these notes preceded the work of Bernard Malgrange [23] on what is now known as the Malgrange Preparation Theorem-which allows the relatively easy computation of normal forms of stable singularities as well as the proof of the main theorem in the subject-and the definitive work of John Mather. More recently, two survey articles have appeared, by Arnold [4] and Wall [53], which have done much to codify the new material; still there is no totally accessible description of this subject for the beginning student. We hope that these notes will partially fill this gap. In writing this manuscript, we have repeatedly cribbed from the sources mentioned above-in particular, the Thom-Levine notes and the six basic papers by Mather.

A phenomenon which appears in nature, or human behavior, can sometimes be explained by saying that a certain potential function is maximized, or minimized. For example, the Hamiltonian mechanics, soapy films, size of an atom, business management, etc. In mathematics, a point where a given function attains an extreme value is called a critical point, or a singular point. The purpose of singularity theory is to explore the properties of singular points of functions and mappings.This is a volume on the proceedings of the fourth Japanese-Australian Workshop on Real and Complex Singularities held in Kobe, Japan. It consists of 11 original articles on singularities. Readers will be introduced to some important new notions for characterizations of singularities and several interesting results are delivered. In addition, current approaches to classical topics and state-of-the-art effective computational methods of invariants of singularities are also presented. This volume will be useful not only to the singularity theory specialists but also to general mathematicians.

A workshop on Singularities, Bifurcation and Dynamics was held at Warwick in July 1989 as part of a year-long symposium on Singularity Theory and its applications. The proceedings fall into two halves: Volume I mainly on connections with algebraic geometry and volume II on connections with dynamical systems theory, bifurcation theory, and applications in the sciences. The papers are orginal research, stimulated by the symposium and workshops: All have been refereed, and none will appear elsewhere. The main topic, deformation theory, is represented by several papers on descriptions of the bases of versal deformations, and several more on descriptions of the generic fibres. Other topics include stratifications, and applications to differential geometry.

Covers such topics as construction of new knot invariants, stable cohomology of complementary spaces to diffusion diagrams, topological properties of spaces of Legendre maps, application of Weierstrass bifurcation points in projective curve flattenings, classification of singularities of projective surfaces with boundary, and control theory.

On April 7-10, 1980, the American Mathematical Society sponsored a Symposium on the Mathematical Heritage of Henri Poincari, held at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. This work presents the written versions of all but three of the invited talks presented at this Symposium. It contains 2 papers by invited speakers who aren't able to attend.

The Singularity School and Conference took place in Luminy, Marseille, from January 24th to February 25th 2005. More than 180 mathematicians from over 30 countries converged to discuss recent developments in singularity theory.The volume contains the elementary and advanced courses conducted by singularities specialists during the conference, general lectures on singularity theory, and lectures on applications of the theory to various domains. The subjects range from geometry and topology of singularities, through real and complex singularities, to applications of singularities.

First integrated treatment of main ideas behind René Thom's theory of catastrophes stresses detailed applications in the physical sciences. Mathematics of theory explained with a minimum of technicalities. Over 200 illustrations clarify text designed for researchers and postgraduate students in engineering, mathematics, physics and biology. 1978 edition. Bibliography.

This is the third volume of the Handbook of Geometry and Topology of Singularities, a series which aims to provide an accessible account of the state of the art of the subject, its frontiers, and its interactions with other areas of research. This volume consists of ten chapters which provide an in-depth and reader-friendly survey of various important aspects of singularity theory. Some of these complement topics previously explored in volumes I and II, such as, for instance, Zariski’s equisingularity, the interplay between isolated complex surface singularities and 3-manifold theory, stratified Morse theory, constructible sheaves, the topology of the non-critical levels of holomorphic functions, and intersection cohomology. Other chapters bring in new subjects, such as the Thom–Mather theory for maps, characteristic classes for singular varieties, mixed Hodge structures, residues in complex analytic varieties, nearby and vanishing cycles, and more. Singularities are ubiquitous in mathematics and science in general. Singularity theory interacts energetically with the rest of mathematics, acting as a crucible where different types of mathematical problems interact, surprising connections are born and simple questions lead to ideas which resonate in other parts of the subject, and in other subjects. Authored by world experts, the various contributions deal with both classical material and modern developments, covering a wide range of topics which are linked to each other in fundamental ways. The book is addressed to graduate students and newcomers to the theory, as well as to specialists who can use it as a guidebook.

Represents the state of the art in the new field of synthetic differential topology.

A workshop on Singularities, Bifuraction and Dynamics was held at Warwick in July 1989, as part of a year-long symposium on Singularity Theory and its applications. The proceedings fall into two halves: Volume I mainly on connections with algebraic geometry and volume II on connections with dynamical systems theory, bifurcation theory and applications in the sciences. The papers are original research, stimulated by the symposium and workshop: All have been refereed and none will appear elsewhere. The main topic of volume II is new methods for the study of bifurcations in nonlinear dynamical systems, and applications of these.