Grounded in the work of Henri Poincare, R. Thom and other mathematicians, catastrophe theory attempts to study how the qualitative nature of the solutions of equations depends on the parameters that appear in the equations. This advanced-level treatment describes the mathematics of catastrophe theory and its applications to problems in mathematics, physics, chemistry and the engineering disciplines. 1981 edition. References. 28 tables. 397 black-and-white illustrations.