Tipping point

The tipping point, sometimes known as the moment of critical mass, is the critical point in a situation, process, or system when a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place. The first citation for ‘tip point’ is 1957 when it was used by the sociologist, Martin Grodzins, University of Chicago, in an article in Scientific American in which he analysed the sociological impact of Black American households in white neighbourhoods. Grodzins’ research showed that when Black American households reached 30%, this was the ‘tip point’ after which White American households would start to re-locate. Apparently, real estate agents and urban planners in the Chicago area were already using the expression tip point in this sense well before the appearance of Grodzins’ article. Very soon after 1957 it became more familiar as the ‘tipping point’ and spread very quickly across the English-speaking world and into far wider contexts.