Catastrophe - Definition and Overview

Catastrophe is a disaster on a larger scale, destroying most or all means to fight it, including the extinction of whole societies.

In the insurance field, a catastrophe is a disaster beyond expectations. For instance, the insurance industry can calculate the expected damage from hurricanes in a specific location for a particular year. A catastrophic hurricane causes loss of life and property beyond the calculations.

In the field of sociology it is defined as social change of an outstanding radical and rapid character, with highly magical explanations by victims and others.

As a technical term "catastrophic failure" may simply mean that something breaks, etc. Also the term occurs as error message on a computer.

In mathematics, catastrophe theory studies how the behaviour of dynamical systems can change drastically with variations in certain parameters.