An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the most important development in mathematics since the invention of calculus 300 years ago.
Stephen Smale, Roderick Wong (2000). “The Collected Papers of Stephen Smale”, p.814, World Scientific
![An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the most important development in mathematics since the invention of](http://cdn.quoteddaily.com/images/stephen-smale/an-announcement-of-christopher-zeemans-lecture-at-northwestern-university-in-the-spring-of-1977-contains-a-quote-describing-catastrophe-theory.jpg)