Things often change or behave differently at extremes or in extreme regimes. Also, the extreme forms of things may be radically different from the normal, average, or moderate examples of same. Extreme possibilities in general can be instructive. The kinds of changes that occur at extremes are characteristic and to some unknown extent universal. Knowledge of extremes can have predictive, heuristic, and descriptive value. It can suggest what changes to expect or how to [create, prevent, modify, research, or exploit] such changes. Extremes or extremal phenomena that occur [in one science or in connection with one phenomenon] can be used to predict the [occurrence, nature, and larger possibilities] of [extremes and their phenomena] [in another science or everywhere in science]. Given extremes are often relative rather than absolute - current rather than final - and yet can be used to anticipate the greater extremes, or entire series of extremes, that are or may be ulterior to them. THE TYPES OF THINGS THAT MAY HAPPEN AT EXTREMES ARE MULTITUDINOUS 1. Inversions. 2. Reversals. 3. Retrogressions. 4. Weakening or failure of laws, constants, and principles. 5. Division of a phenomenon (perhaps previously considered indivisible) into two or more distinct and novel phenomena. 6. Coalescence of a phenomenon with one or more other phenomena (that may have been viewed as incompatible, disparate, or unrelated). 7. Dissipation or extinction of normal phenomena and their replacement by new, novel, or revolutionary phenomena. 8. Emergence or relevance of new laws, constants, or principles. 9. Clarification and reconstruction of the foundations of things. 10. Advent of new regimes. 11. Mutual interactions and interferences of formerly isolated or compatible things. 12. MODIFICATIONS OF THE ACCUSTOMED [probabilities, frequencies, numbers, ratios, and other relationships] of things. 13. Antisyzygies. 14. NOVEL COMBINATIONS OF: phenomena, entities, types of behavior, systems, processes, causes, effects, abilities, levels of things, forces, etc. 15. DESTRUCTION OF: equilibria, symmetries, equalities, equivalences, conservation laws, etc. 16. APPEARANCE OR PROLIFERATION OF: exceptions, anomalies, pathoses, defects, problems, stresses, strains, errors, paradoxes, etc. 17. Accelerations and decelerations. 18. Excitations and relaxations. 19. Complications and simplifications. 20. Transcendence of former limits and impossibilities. 21. Remaking of boundaries. 22. THE FORMERLY IMPOSSIBLE [completion, culmination, perfection, or transformation] of certain things. 23. Interactions of wholes and parts, and holistic changes. 24. Circumplexes. 25. Singularities. 26. Chaos. 27. Supersedure or usurpation of local by universal - or universal by local - phenomena. 28. Diversification or homogenization. 29. Oscillations or random behavior. 30. Loss or invalidation of familiar perspectives. 31. New general patterns of things. 32. Etc. THE INTEREST OF EXTREMES, OR IMPORTANCE OF THEIR STUDY, ALSO INCLUDES 1. That they are able to [demonstrate or define] the limits of one's or mankind's [knowledge, understanding, techniques, powers, means, or theories] - or the illusoriness of omniscience and omnipotence. 2. That they [exercise, challenge, develop, and liberate] the mind. 3. That they establish boundary conditions. 4. THAT THEY PROVIDE TESTS OF THE [fundamentality, absoluteness, universality, comprehensiveness, rigor, robustness, exactness, finality, uniqueness, etc] OF ONE'S [THEORY AND KNOWLEDGE] [OF NORMAL PHENOMENA OR OF THE FAMILIAR WORLD]. 5. That they supply a larger framework for thought. 6. That they clarify the fundamental dimensions and structure of nature. 7. That they diminish the arbitrary element in human perception and experience. 8. That they point the way to the general advancement of the dimensions of human existence now and in the future. 9. Etc. IDEONOMY COULD HELP TO [DETERMINE OR TREAT] THE MOST EXTREME [DEGREES OF OR POSSIBILITIES FOR] SUCH THINGS AS 1. Volcanic eruptions or episodic volcanism in Earth's history. 2. Social fads and fashions. 3. Political ideas. 4. Human good or evil. 5. Storms or climatic changes. 6. Renderings of musical or other artistic ideas. 7. Chess strategies or styles. 8. Human poisons or diseases. 9. Statements of certain ideas. 10. Illusions (as of safety, absence, or necessity). 11. Solar fluctuations (as of luminosity, volume, or spherical asymmetry). 12. Energies of elementary particles. 13. Performances in sport. 14. Oscillations of the global economy. 15. Types of chemical reactions, or forms of molecules. 16. Rates of bioevolutionary [innovation or change]. 17. Fluctuations of the level or volume of the ocean over Earth's history. 18. Algorithmic [shortcuts or powers]. 19. Drugs. 20. Cellular automata. 21. Engineering materials. ILLUSTRATIVE [GENERAL OR UNIVERSAL] DIMENSIONS OF EXTREMES, WHOSE [SINGULAR OR PLURAL] [MAXIMUMS AND MINIMUMS] MIGHT BE WORTH INVESTIGATING, INCLUDE 1. Pressure 2. Density 3. Purity 4. Velocity 5. Rate 6. Duration 7. Energy. 8. Mass 9. Temperature 10. Frequency 11. Size 12. Population 13. Accuracy of measurement 14. Stability 15. Complexity 16. Orderedness 17. Correlation 18. Information 19. Probability 20. Control 21. Disturbance 22. Isolation 23. Feedback 24. Linearity 25. Activity 26. Reactivity 27. Uniformity 28. Integration 29. Excitation 30. Growth 31. Reliability 32. Symmetry 33. Identity 34. Universality 35. Efficiency 36. Violence 37. Work 38. Freedom or independence 39. Synchrony 40. Flux 41. Potential 42. Perfection 43. Convergence 44. Divergence 45. Oscillation 46. Creation 47. Disappearance 48. Redundancy 49. Tolerance 50. Importance 51. Transformation 52. Youth (or age) 53. Etc.