Introduction to Catastrophe Theory

This book was written on the basis of lectures read by authors for a number of years for students of senior courses of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. The course of lectures aims to familiarize students with a relatively new section of mathematical physics - the theory of the features of the display of sets, also sometimes called the theory of disasters, and its applications in physics. The theory of features lies at the junction of such areas of mathematics as differential equations, mathematical analysis, topology, geometry, abstract algebra, and is a completely independent discipline that arresting the researcher with a powerful, well -developed and strictly reasonable apparatus of studying various physical phenomena in the most interesting, "critical "situations.
For students, graduate students, engineers and researchers of physical specialties