Transition Phenomena in Nonlinear Systems

Since this workshop brings together mathematicians, on the one hand, and research workers in the field of natural sciences, on the other, I will try to present the basic ideas of my talk in a form which is not too technical. Furthermore I can omit details because they are laid down in a number of recent articles and a book of mine [1],[2]. I shall first outline what I mean by transition phenomena. As will transpire from the examples, the general feature common to the transition phenomena I treat here are dramatic changes on macroscopic scales.