This book provides a modern investigation into the bifurcation phenomena of physical and engineering problems. Systematic methods - based on asymptotic, probabilistic, and group-theoretic standpoints - are used to examine experimental and computational data from numerous examples (soil, sand, kaolin, concrete, domes). Engineers may find this book, with its minimized mathematical formalism, to be a useful introduction to modern bifurcation theory. For mathematicians, static bifurcation theory for finite-dimensional systems, as well as its implications for practical problems, is illuminated by the numerous examples.