This book has been written in a frankly partisian spirit-we believe that singularity theory offers an extremely useful approach to bifurcation prob- lems and we hope to convert the reader to this view. In this preface we will discuss what we feel are the strengths of the singularity theory approach. This discussion then Ieads naturally into a discussion of the contents of the book and the prerequisites for reading it. Let us emphasize that our principal contribution in this area has been to apply pre-existing techniques from singularity theory, especially unfolding theory and classification...

Applied Mathematical Sciences #69.In this volume we focus on bifurcation problems with symmetry and show how group-theoretic techniques aid the understanding of transitions in symmetric systems.

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...