the.com/tipping point

means The critical threshold at which a gradual build-up of small changes triggers a sudden, large, and often irreversible shift.

from Originally a literal phrase in physics and engineering, describing the exact point where an object's center of gravity shifts enough to make it topple over — tip instead of sit steady. It crept into social science through mid-20th-century studies of neighborhood racial demographics, where researchers used it to describe the threshold at which one group's departure triggered a rapid exodus of others. The term went properly mainstream after Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book 'The Tipping Point,' which borrowed the epidemiology of disease outbreaks — how small causes can have large, sudden effects once a critical mass is reached — and applied it to trends, fads, and social behavior generally.