Review of Six Sources of Collapse by Charles R. Hadlock

Charles R. Hadlock defines a “collapse” to refer loosely to “some relatively rapid process that leads to a significant reduction in quantity, quality, or level of organization” in his book “Six Sources of Collapse; A Mathematician’s Perspective on How Things Can Fall Apart in the Blink of an Eye”. Examples of collapses include the disappearance, over a period of 30 years, of the passenger pigeon population from over four billion to zero pigeons. Enron, of course, was a collapse, as was the 1929 stock market crash or the 2005-6 housing bubble. As a mathematician Hadlock focuses on understanding how and why things go unexpected and catastrophically wrong, and how can we manage the possibility of collapse. Specifically he focuses on six different sources; his list of sources is wide ranging but likely not conclusive.