"Porter. Mason Porter."

Through a stray Google search during a spare few minutes, I found episode 16 of an audio drama called Action Science Theatre.

This episode contains a spy named "Mason Porter" and has three mathematics-related tags (math, maths, and catastrophe theory). The brief 'explanation' of catastrophe theory in the episode is ok but not quite right. It is amusing, though, that their brief discussion of catastrophe theory is reminiscent of the more science-fictiony aspects of catastrophe theory that were hyped for years. (In Vladimir Arnold's book on catastrophe theory, he has some very snarky things to say about that with respect to the work of René Thom.)

Here are few lines from this episode:



The character with my name, who is a spy who works for British Intelligence: "Let me introduce myself. [...ominous music...] Porter. Mason Porter."

Main character (the mathematician): "What? Really?"

"Me": "I'm sorry."

Mathematician: "Is that really your name?"

"Me": "Well of course it is. Why?"

Mathematician: "It just sounds a bit made up."



Hmpf. That's my real name --- so not exactly made up. Anyway, at least my namesake wasn't killed off in chapter 1 this time. (The link in my old blog entry is now dead. Perhaps that suggests that that book project might not be completed any time soon?)

"Dangerous Intersections"

Steve Strogatz's latest article in the New York Times concerns the fold catastrophe and its manifestation---quantitatively in some cases and in toy models in others---in various phenomena. (By the way, the example in footnote 10 is something that occurs in many of the threshold models of social influence that have become increasingly popular since a paper Duncan Watts published in 2002.)

(Tip of the cap to Mariano Beguerisse Díaz.)

Dali, Topology, and Catastrophe Theory

Courtesy Cat, I just found out that Dali had some connections with Rene Thom and put some catastrophe theory and topology into some of his art. In particular, he pointed out The Swallow's Tail and Topological Abduction of Europe - Homage to René Thom.