Life improves slowly but goes wrong very fast and only Catastrophe is clearly visible - Edward Teller (American Physicist) The above quote really tells us the whole story - only the catastrophes are clearly visible to us. Before we even start, I think we need to clearly understand the catastrophe theory and then look at the possible connections. According to the scientific dictionary - Catastrophes are bifurcations between different equilibria, or fixed point attractors. Due to their restricted nature, catastrophes can be classified based on how many control parameters are being simultaneously varied. What does it mean in plain English? Catastrophe theory, in mathematics, a set of methods used to study and classify the ways in which a system can undergo sudden large changes in behaviour as one or more of the variables that control it are changed continuously. So what is the importance of this concept? A simple example is the change in shape of an arched bridge as the load on it is gradually increased. The bridge deforms in a relatively uniform manner until the load reaches a critical value, at which point the shape of the bridge changes suddenly—it collapses. This example is for a discontinuous process. While in a continuous process such as heating the gas, the process is very smooth. The temperature change and the rate of change are smooth and predictable since it is continuous. (Calculus and differential calculus solves these) So there was a need to predict changes in non-continuous process, which is what a catastrophe theory does. In the 1960s a French mathematician named René Thom (1923- ) developed a mathematical tool known as catastrophe theory. Thom used his theory to study and make predictions of processes involving sudden abrupt changes. OK, now what is the relationship between startups and this concept?
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The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. -- Marcel Pagnol (French Dramatist) I'm sure that everyone in their recent past would have listened once to their father's story about his childhood and how they struggled but still was far better enjoyable than it is now. I for one never cared about those stories and it was a repeated storyline for me. Cut to the present day and I am almost doing the same to my kids. I have started telling them stories of how I used to play till 8PM on the streets and not watch TV. It was great with only the Black & White DD channel for TV. The wait for seeing cartoons on Sunday, Malgudi days or ஒலியும் ஒளியும் (Oliyum Oliyum) and how friends used to talk for hours face-to-face. I still feel that how TV and entertainment were destroyed by the 24/7 satellite channels, Now I see my kids doing what I did to my father's story. I can see now where the dissent and disinterest come to them. There is no connection for them to what I am saying or experiencing. It's nostalgic for me but for those who have not even seen it how can I expect them to feel it? What's that got to do with the topic - Just hang on for a short while. Being bored, I decided to open up FB after a long time and I saw countless posts on the dangers of social media and why we should go back to times before WWW was found. I find a strange contradiction that those people who are shouting against it or in fact using the same channel to propagate it. Much like the advisory warning on the cigarette packet. This made me think for some time if it is really true that as one goes old, they seem to feel that their childhood times look far better than the present? A likely answer to it would be that during childhood there is no responsibility and hence the time looked great. Come beyond childhood to job, managers, marriage, housing loans, EMI, etc then the same period looks crazy. This is what I think maybe a plausible reason. A couple of days back, when flipping on channels on the TV I stumbled upon an old movie of Woody Allen named "The midnight in Paris". This movie is the one which is credited for coining the concept called "Golden Age Syndrome" So what is it? |
AuthorVasudevan is a Leadership Mentor and an Executive coach. I run an online website geared towards helping creative entrepreneurs and future managers to build their dreams. Archives
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