Excellent illustration of how difficult it is to predict

[mooncliff]

It is difficult for us to predict even the motion of a slinky. What happens when you drop it?

Things don't necessarily behave the way you think they should if they are very big, very small, at extreme temperatures, extreme pressures, etc.
This is why plausibility and confabulated scenarios can be so misleading.
Some reasonable sounding assertion is made, but we are astonished when it does not turn out that way.
We have risk equations and economic models that are asserted to tell you the future. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not.
Profs say "We need more quants (quantitative modelers)! Then the equations will work next time!"
Maybe, but that sounds like superstition. If the medicine didnt work, it is because I didnt do the ritual right, or the stars were not aligned, or...

Anyway, very amusing to watch. Im sure kids will like it.

Sorta like "black swan", maybe it would be better to say "drop a slinky".

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1611538.html

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Excellent illustration of how difficult it is to predict

hummm... yes. More quants. And more sysadmins. Especially more sysadmins. That will resolve all your profitability problems.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Excellent illustration of how difficult it is to predict

Its actually easy to make predictions. Its not even hard to make them right since I predict that it will get cold again this winter. What is hard is beating the market and making money with predictions.

[cobben]

Re: Excellent illustration of how difficult it is to predict

It is difficult for us to predict

Jim Rickards said in a recent video that prediction is no problem if you have the correct model.

G. Box said that all models are wrong but some are useful.

How to find a not too wrong model that is sufficiently useful?

[c1ue]

Re: Excellent illustration of how difficult it is to predict

It is difficult for us to predict even the motion of a slinky. What happens when you drop it?

It falls.

[reggie]

Re: Excellent illustration of how difficult it is to predict

Virtually all models (and their outcomes) that reach the public are limited by their frame of perception.