
Scientists identify a mathematical 'crystal ball' that may predict calamities - fraqed
http://phys.org/news/2013-10-scientists-mathematical-crystal-ball-calamities.html
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pertinhower
From what I understand of chaos theory, and from what I'm hearing of recent
trends in scientific overreaching and poor peer reviewing, I am inclined to
dismiss this paper as yet another overambitious claim to know what can't be
known. Divination is the world's oldest and most alluring scam. What makes
this different?

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srl
The paper: [http://lizier.me/joseph/publications/2013-Barnett-
InfoFlowIs...](http://lizier.me/joseph/publications/2013-Barnett-
InfoFlowIsingModel.pdf)

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ChuckMcM
Thanks for that. I'm not convinced, it look like they try to correlate energy
and lattice structure and then extrapolate from there to dynamic system
collapse. Scanning it, I felt like it read like one of those 'autogenerated'
papers, which is always a red flag for me.

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FkZ
It seems unlikely this would be generalizable in much of a useful way. "We
conjecture that this phenomenon is universal for a class of complex dynamical
systems and discuss implications." the paper says, I'd like to see more on why
they think it's reasonable to conjecture that.

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forkandwait
[http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i17/e177203](http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i17/e177203)

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ultramundane828
As one person comments below the article, this totally is reminiscent of the
Foundation trilogy.

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annnnd
I would argue that it is not prediction that is failing with economic systems;
it is the lack of interest to change anything (from those who could) that
triggers the consequences. After all, rich didn't get any poorer with the last
crisis.

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jimmytidey
If you have a method to predict epileptic seizures you can intervene. If you
have a (published) method to predict stock market crises then the agents in
the stock market will take it into account, presumably breaking the method.

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EGreg
This is going to sound funny, but HOW did they get the bottom bar to
(unwittingly?) bring up the mobile Safari chrome around the website when
tapped? Try it on an iphone... it's an incredibly nice effect

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51Cards
On reading the title my mind immediately went to the Nic Cage movie "Knowing".
Someone needs to check if their process has a finite limit.

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colanderman
Hm… global information is flowing very quickly these days… what with the
Internet and all. Are we on the edge of a "calamity"?

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galapago
"He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over"

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Shorel
Does anyone else remember "the green button" ?

