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PREDICTIONS - SOCIETY'S TELLTALE SIGNATURE REVEALS THE PAST
AND FORECASTS THE FUGTURE
PROLOGUE
Spicy Talk and a Stimulating Meal
1. SCIENCE AND FORETELLING
Invariants
Safety in Cars
Rationing Computer Innovation
Humans versus Machines
Do Animals All Die at the Same Age?
The Bell-Shaped Curve of the Life Cycle
The S-Curve of Cumulative Growth
The Law of Natural Growth
Controls on Rabbit Populations
Gauss for Statistics was Like Bach for Music-an Ingenious Forger
2. NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK
How Much Order Is There in "Random" Discoveries?
Learning From Success
Could You Take Aim at an Apple on Your Son's Head?
A Real Case
The Industry Learning Curve
Going West
Mesopotamia, the Moon and the Matterhorn
3. INANIMATE PRODUCTION LIKE ANIMATE REPRODUCTION
Do Not Try to Forecast What You Already Know.
Man-made Dinosaurs
Mama Earth
Did Christianity Begin Before Christ?
4. THE RISE AND FALL OF CREATIVITY
Mozart Dies of Old Age
Did Einstein Publish Too Much?
Can We Predict Our Own Death?
Searching for Failures of the S-Curve Approach
An Unnatural Suicide Attempt
A "Fertility" Template
Contemporary Geniuses
Innovation in Computer Making
5. GOOD GUYS AND BAD GUYS COMPETE THE SAME WAY
Criminal Careers
Killer Diseases
When Will There be a Miracle Drug for AIDS?
6. A HARD FACT OF LIFE
Straight Lines in Nature
The Cultural Resistance to Innovation
Unnatural Substitutions
The Swedes are Coming
Fishing and Prying
7. "COMPETITION IS THE CREATOR AND THE REGULATOR"
When it Rains it Pours
Successive Substitutions
Only One Front-Runner at a Time
Transport Infrastructures
The Primary Energy Picture
The Disease "Market"
Nobel Prize Awards
8. A COSMIC HEARTBEAT
The Wall Street Crash of 1987
Matters of Life and Death
Epitaphs
9. REACHING THE CEILING EVERYWHERE
Clocking the Transport of the Future
Futuronics
On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace
Global Village in 2025
10. IF I CAN, I WANT
What Makes a Tourist
The Nutritional Value of New Impressions
From Tourism to S-curves
From S-curves to Chaos
Before and After Chaos
11. FORECASTING DESTINY
Decision Non-makers
A System's Predictability
Wasteful Computers
Little Choice
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A. MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION OF S-CURVES AND THE PROCEDURE FOR
FITTING THEM ON DATA
The Predator-Pray Equations
The Malthusian Case: One Species Only
One-to-One Substitutions: Two Competitors in a Niche
Multiple Competition: Many Competitors at the Same Time
Fitting and S-curve on a Set of Data Points
APPENDIX B. EXPECTED UNCERTAINTIES ON S-CURVE FORECASTS
APPENDIX C. ADDITIONAL FIGURES
NOTES AND SOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX |
