Sometimes it can seem as if drastic changes happen at random. One moment a country is stable; the next, a revolution begins and the government is overthrown. One day a new piece of technology is a novelty; the next, everyone has it and we cannot imagine life without it. Or an idea lingers at the fringes of society before it suddenly becomes mainstream. As erratic and unpredictable as these occurrences are, there is a logic to them, which can be explained by the concept of critical mass.