Talk:Tipping point

message: I've moved the material on Gladwell's book to its own page, with some expansion and editing.   I deleted the paragraph below, as it's very unencyclopaedic and doesn't help me understand what connection there is, if any, between the concepts.   
For comparison, consider some of the recent work of the Santa Fe Institute and others on the emergence of order and complexity in dense chaotic systems. A tipping point is rather like a social "phase transition". You're familiar with the phase transition of water, to become ice or steam. A tipping point is the same sort of thing... a point when suddenly everything changes and the properties become nonlinear. Well these phase transitions and tipping points are everywhere, and often accompany the "sudden" emergence of ordered systems from random systems. The crystalization of minerals, the formation of astronomical systems, the extinction of species, and perhaps even the first appearance of "life" are all such examples. The concept is quite fascinating and, it would seem, important to understanding the nature of the complexity we see in the fascinating world around us. If this sounds interesting, you might check out Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe.
Markalexander100 19:45, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: See Mathmatics#Mathematics as science as a starting point.  99.181.131.214 (talk) 02:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: If mathmatics is "science" then economics surely too.   99.181.130.94 (talk) 01:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely not.  In any case, we could eliminate economics by using "quantitative sciences", except that that would eliminate planetary boundaries as well, which seems counterproductive.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

text: The important thing is to gather those which fit under the definition at the top under that definition.  The economics definition doesn't fit.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is that important to you?  99.181.138.52 (talk) 05:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the start of gathering together the article tipping point (science), which explains why many of these "tipping point" articles really have something in common besides the name.  Since I now have a working definition with reference, I can start putting together a true article with sections pointing to the other tipping point articles.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 08:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

text: Looks like a clarity improvement.  Thank you Special:Contributions/William M. Connolley.  99.109.127.44 (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is [[mathematics]] [[science]] or a tool? 

message: Why is the order of the items being altered?    Is there a clear definitive wp rule?  99.109.124.95 (talk) 23:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good question.  Why are you altering the order?  There is a guideline that they should generally be in alphabetical order unless there are different types of items, or there is a clear difference in frequency of use.  Both of these occur in this disambiguation page.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You wouldn't be the one to ask, Special:Contributions/Arthur Rubin.  99.181.143.128 (talk) 03:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order?