# breaking point (threshold)

*Ordinarily means:* the point when something can no longer endure and fails

a parameter has drifted until it crosses a wall where the thing can no longer persist, but the parts remain and the model does not yet know it has ended

- Computed level: L14 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: emergence  ·  Arena: everyday language

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [parameter](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-parameter.condition), [drift](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-drift.aimless), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [persist](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-persist.continue), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation)

**Through:** crossing without removal

**Novel properties:**
- emergent.window

## Examples
- The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1940 when wind-driven oscillations exceeded its structural tolerance, though its materials remained intact. *(engineering)*
- In 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis fell suddenly when corrosion and design flaws crossed a load-bearing threshold. *(infrastructure)*
- Neural networks trained on biased datasets begin generating toxic outputs only after a certain number of training iterations, past a detectable performance wall. *(computing)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-breaking-point.threshold*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-breaking-point.threshold.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*