French mathematician Renee Tom created catastrophe theory in the 1960s.

Tom theorized there are two types of processes in nature, continuous and discontinuous.

Continuous processes are smooth and easy to predict.

For example, you're probably at a certain number of miles per gallon of gas until you

have to fill up, and your fuel gauge is able to tell you when you're running low.

But then there are discontinuous processes.

Picture an earthquake.

Everything seems cool and nothing really seems like it's changing, but then boom, you have

this sudden colossal change, which Tom's theory labels a catastrophe.

I would posit that false confessions can be a brilliant illustration of catastrophe theory.

You have an innocent person who's brought in for interrogation.

They maintain their innocence.

The police try every trick in the book to try to coerce the confession.

But for a while, nothing seems to work, externally at least.

The suspect continues denying involvement and looks like he's not going to crack.

But internally, something is cracking.

The suspect's confidence.

He begins to believe there's no way out that the officers will keep hammering on him

for hours unless he tells them what they want to hear.

And finally, when the officers find just the right thing to say, we have it, a catastrophe.

Both in terms of the theory and the faith it's about to befall the suspect and the other

innocent individuals he might have implicated.

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