Jianying Ji wrote on Fri, Apr 11, 2008 09:59 PM UTC:
Rich I think is more correct, this is an attempt to use catastrophe theory to chess. I'm not sure it succeed in anyway. Essentially the author is arguing that if a move is bad if it crosses a fold in the 'evaluation surface', that is the surface created by giving every square a value depending on its importance. The surface is then warped to show moves that would cause irreversible changes in evaluation.
Missoum applies this to one move in one game which allows for the nice graphics he drew. However as a general theory I do not see how one would begin to create one.
Personally some kind of quantum set theory or more classically combinatoric game theory is far more apt.