Catastrophe Theory Can Shed New Light On How Drought Affects Plants
Catastrophe Theory Can Shed New Light On How Drought Affects Plants
Sometimes things are fine—until they’re not. A boat capsizes. A bridge collapses. The stock market takes an extreme turn. These are examples of “catastrophe theory,” a tool in mathematics that can be used to describe a set of variables that combine, at a specific point, to completely change a system. It’s a framework that can be applied to a variety of scenarios, and now a University of Georgia scientist wants to use it to better understand how plants use water and respond to drought.