Yogi Berra reportedly said: “It’s
tough to make predictions, especially
about the future.” However, one
type of prediction is amazingly
accurate. Years ago, it was possible
to predict the exact path and the
exact timing of the total solar
eclipse that happened this week.
Why can’t we predict the economy
or the weather this way?
The orbit of a moon or planet is
described by three second-order
differential equations (one for
each dimension). That means it
takes 3*2=6 initial conditions to
describe a particular orbit.
Specifying the three position
coordinates and the three
velocity components at one point
in time would be one way to do it.
Forecasting the weather is harder,
because even though the basic
physics of weather is known,
the number of initial conditions
that would be needed to make
accurate predictions is many times
more than the number of available
observations. Forecasting the
economy is even harder because we
don’t have any exact models describing
economic behavior, and even if we did
the number of initial conditions needed
would again be much more than the
available observations. However,
astronomy predictions are so accurate
you can start making plans to be
in Carbondale Illinois for the
2024 total eclipse.
My eclipse pictures are at this link (click
on each picture to advance):
http://myhome.spu.edu/ddowning/sunset/010_M001.htm
Also see Michael Covington’s pictures at:
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/michael/blog/1708/index.html
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–Douglas Downing
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……………..
douglasadowning 