ABSTRACT
Before dealing with the specific topic of vehicle stability, it is useful first to discuss some general concepts of stability. Mathematicians sometimes joke that there is no stability to the definition of stability. This is because, for nonlinear differential equations, numbers of definitions of stability and instability have been developed. Each definition has a precise use and each differs from the others enough that one cannot say they are all essentially equivalent. For the purposes of this book, however, the situation is not as hopeless as it might at first seem.
