Guys,
For our class, Futuring and Innovations, I have had to expand my reading to include some temporal aspects. Yes, I am overreaching again! Anyway, I came across this reading about time and uncertainty from Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, 10th anniversary edition. Specifically, Chapter Four, contains some of Werner Heisenberg's concepts on the Uncertainty Principle. He states, "In order to predict the future position and velocity of a particle, one has to be able to measure its present position and velocity accurately."
I believe that we can adapt the Uncertainty Principle to our class. I don't remember who told me this, but the difference between forecasting and foretelling the future is that forecasting relies on 'proven' scientific methods to tell the future, while foretelling the future relies on 'other' methods. So forecasting is objective method, while foretelling is subjective methods. The scientific method of forecasting relies on the methods discussed in our textbook, to include statistical methods. My classes in Statistics does not guarantee 100% accuracy, which suggest a 'margin of error' in any measurement.
Something else that caught my eye while reading A Brief History of Time is that there is talk about a deterministic view of the universe. Thankfully, the book do provide a counterpoint in that there are too many unknown variables to consider pointing out that the world is more likely stochastic, or a combination of both. So where does this leave us? I would say that we are almost back to where we started on our textbook, in that there will always be uncertainty in predicting the future. HOWEVER, knowing the errors and the sources of possible errors, such as the uncertainty principle and the point and counterpoint of a deterministic universe gives us a greater understanding of our prediction methodologies. You could say that we are another step closer to truly comprehending forecasting, and hopefully make more accurate predictions.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
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2 comments:
I don't think that there is much evidence to support the notion that forecasting is based on scientific principles - except for the weather which is based on a number of large data models. Stock market forecasting seems to be based solely on opinion and no science at all.
NT
From age 7-10, I spent my summers living at a local race track. My uncle was a jockey and my great-uncle owned 31 race horses.
Most folks pay little attention to children in these environments. I would sit quietly and listen to the chatter in the stables and in the clubhouse at the jockey and trainers table.
My first literature was the racing form and Dr. Seuss's A Cat in the Hat. *grins* I loved reading the racing form and calculated probabilities, then compared them to the odds board long before my first math class.
Thanks to some risk takers who would take a chance on my predictions, I made an average $22 a day one summer. On the days when no one was around, I would tally my wins and keep track of my track record.
I also tracked the win performance of jockeys and the horses owned by popular trainers.
Again, at a tender age, I applied the same math and analytical skills to a couple of other activities with similar success. I bought my first piano with the winnings from a bingo jackpot by assessing the likelihood of certain numbers being called more often than others.
Coincidence? What is interesting is that I do not like to gamble, for I am not fond of losing and refuse to take risks that yield a low probability of success. *chuckles*
My first PC was a TRS Model 1 by Radio Shack with a cassette drive for a storage device (1981). A bookie died and left it to my father with the racing statistics for several race tracks.
Although I did not meet my father until I was 23 years old when he hired a private investigator to find me, we had much in common.
Life is indeed a circle. *smiles*
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