Singularities and Groups in Bifurcation Theory: Volume I

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 appl…