Predicting The Unpredictable

Author : Susan Elizabeth Hough
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2016-11-08
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691173306

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Predicting the Unpredictable by Susan Elizabeth Hough Pdf

An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it's the catastrophic 2010 quake that took a devastating toll on the island nation of Haiti or a future great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in California, which scientists know is inevitable. Yet despite rapid advances in earthquake science, seismologists still can’t predict when the Big One will hit. Predicting the Unpredictable explains why, exploring the fact and fiction behind the science—and pseudoscience—of earthquake prediction. Susan Hough traces the continuing quest by seismologists to forecast the time, location, and magnitude of future quakes. She brings readers into the laboratory and out into the field—describing attempts that have raised hopes only to collapse under scrutiny, as well as approaches that seem to hold future promise. She also ventures to the fringes of pseudoscience to consider ideas outside the scientific mainstream. An entertaining and accessible foray into the world of earthquake prediction, Predicting the Unpredictable illuminates the unique challenges of predicting earthquakes.

Author : William Poundstone
Publisher : Little, Brown
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2014-06-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780316228084

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Rock Breaks Scissors by William Poundstone Pdf

A practical guide to outguessing everything from multiple-choice tests to the office football pool to the stock market. People are predictable even when they try not to be. William Poundstone demonstrates how to turn this fact to personal advantage in scores of everyday situations, from playing the lottery to buying a home. ROCK BREAKS SCISSORS is mind-reading for real life. Will the next tennis serve go right or left? Will the market go up or down? Most people are poor at that kind of predicting. We are hard-wired to make bum bets on "trends" and "winning streaks" that are illusions. Yet ultimately we're all in the business of anticipating the actions of others. Poundstone reveals how to overcome the errors and improve the accuracy of your own outguessing. ROCK BREAKS SCISSORS is a hands-on guide to turning life's odds in your favor.

Author : James Owen Weatherall
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780547317274

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The Physics of Wall Street by James Owen Weatherall Pdf

A young scholar tells the story of the physicists and mathematicians who created the models that have become the basis of modern finance and argues that these models are the "solution" to--not the source of--our current economic woes.

Author : James Owen Weatherall
Publisher : Short Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Forecasting
ISBN : 1780721390

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The Physics of Finance by James Owen Weatherall Pdf

A book which reveals the people and ideas on the cusp of a new era in finance.

Author : Johanna Rothman
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 114 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Project management
ISBN : 1680501429

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Predicting the Unpredictable by Johanna Rothman Pdf

If you have trouble estimating cost or schedule for your projects, you are not alone. The question is this: who wants the estimate and why? The definition of estimate is to guess. But too often, the people who want estimates want commitments. Instead of a commitment, you can apply practical and pragmatic approaches to developing estimates and then meet your commitments. You can provide your managers with the information they want and that you can live with. Learn how to use different words for your estimates and how to report an estimate that includes uncertainty. Learn who should and should not estimate. Learn how to update your estimate when you know more about your project. Regain estimation sanity. Learn practical and pragmatic ways to estimate schedule or cost for your projects.

Author : Paco Underhill
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781416595243

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Why We Buy by Paco Underhill Pdf

Guide to ever-evolving consumer culture, offering advice on how to keep current customers and attract new ones.

Author : George Dinwiddie
Publisher : Pragmatic Bookshelf
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2019-12-19
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781680507416

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Software Estimation Without Guessing by George Dinwiddie Pdf

Estimating software development often produces more angst than value, but it doesn't have to. Identify the needs behind estimate requests and determine how to meet those needs simply and easily. Choose estimation techniques based on current needs and available information, gaining benefit while reducing cost and effort. Detect bad assumptions that might sink your project if you don't adjust your plans. Discover what to do when an estimate is wrong, how to recover, and how to use that knowledge for future planning. Learn to communicate about estimates in a healthy and productive way, maximizing advantage to the organization and minimizing damage to the people. In a world where most developers hate estimation and most managers fear disappointment with the results, there is hope for both. It requires giving up some widely held misconceptions. Let go of the notion that "an estimate is an estimate" and estimate for the particular need you, and your organization, have. Realize that estimates have a limited shelf-life, and reestimate frequently if it's important. When reality differs from your estimate, don't lament; mine that disappointment for the gold that can be the longer-term jackpot. Estimate in comparison to past experience, by modeling the work mathematically, or a hybrid of both. Learn strategies for effective decomposition of work and aspects of the work that likely affect your estimates. Hedge your bets by comparing the results of different approaches. Find out what to do when an estimate proves wrong. And they will. They're estimates, after all. You'll discover that you can use estimates to warn you of danger so you can take appropriate action in time. Learn some crucial techniques to understand and communicate with those who need to understand. Address both the technical and sociological aspects of estimation, and you'll help your organization achieve its desired goals with less drama and more benefit. What You Need: No software needed, just your past experience and concern for the outcomes.

Author : Dan Gardner
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2010-10-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780771035210

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Future Babble by Dan Gardner Pdf

In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; a few months later it plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would have one of the fastest-growing economies in the year 2000; in 2000, the USSR did not exist. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe; we all know how that turned out. Face it, experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys. And yet every day we ask them to predict the future — everything from the weather to the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack. Future Babble is the first book to examine this phenomenon, showing why our brains yearn for certainty about the future, why we are attracted to those who predict it confidently, and why it’s so easy for us to ignore the trail of outrageously wrong forecasts. In this fast-paced, example-packed, sometimes darkly hilarious book, journalist Dan Gardner shows how seminal research by UC Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock proved that pundits who are more famous are less accurate — and the average expert is no more accurate than a flipped coin. Gardner also draws on current research in cognitive psychology, political science, and behavioral economics to discover something quite reassuring: The future is always uncertain, but the end is not always near.

Author : Marcia Bjornerud
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2020-02-11
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780691202631

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Timefulness by Marcia Bjornerud Pdf

Explains why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to planetary survival and offers suggestions for how to create a more time-literate society.

Author : Howard H. Stevenson,Jeffrey Cruikshank,Jeffrey L. Cruikshank,Mihnea C. Moldoveanu
Publisher : H B S Press
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0875847978

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Do Lunch Or be Lunch by Howard H. Stevenson,Jeffrey Cruikshank,Jeffrey L. Cruikshank,Mihnea C. Moldoveanu Pdf

Explains how to refine predictive skills, make decisions, measure risk, understand conflict, and improve human interactions

Author : William Poundstone
Publisher : Little, Brown Spark
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2012-01-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780316192972

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Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? by William Poundstone Pdf

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of America's best companies, you need to have an answer to this and other puzzling questions. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? guides readers through the surprising solutions to dozens of the most challenging interview questions. The book covers the importance of creative thinking, ways to get a leg up on the competition, what your Facebook page says about you, and much more. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? is a must-read for anyone who wants to succeed in today's job market.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1968
Category : Twenty-first century
ISBN : UCAL:B4887026

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Toward the Year 2018 by Anonim Pdf

Author : Orrin H. Pilkey,Rob Young
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2010-04-16
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781597266437

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The Rising Sea by Orrin H. Pilkey,Rob Young Pdf

On Shishmaref Island in Alaska, homes are being washed into the sea. In the South Pacific, small island nations face annihilation by encroaching waters. In coastal Louisiana, an area the size of a football field disappears every day. For these communities, sea level rise isn’t a distant, abstract fear: it’s happening now and it’s threatening their way of life. In The Rising Sea, Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young warn that many other coastal areas may be close behind. Prominent scientists predict that the oceans may rise by as much as seven feet in the next hundred years. That means coastal cities will be forced to construct dikes and seawalls or to move buildings, roads, pipelines, and railroads to avert inundation and destruction. The question is no longer whether climate change is causing the oceans to swell, but by how much and how quickly. Pilkey and Young deftly guide readers through the science, explaining the facts and debunking the claims of industry-sponsored “skeptics.” They also explore the consequences for fish, wildlife—and people. While rising seas are now inevitable, we are far from helpless. By making hard choices—including uprooting citizens, changing where and how we build, and developing a coordinated national response—we can save property, and ultimately lives. With unassailable research and practical insights, The Rising Sea is a critical first step in understanding the threat and keeping our heads above water.

Author : Susan Elizabeth Hough
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2016-10-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781400884445

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Richter's Scale by Susan Elizabeth Hough Pdf

By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man. Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology. Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder. In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind.

Author : William Poundstone
Publisher : Oneworld
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2020-04-02
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1786077566

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How to Predict Everything by William Poundstone Pdf

How do you predict something that has never happened before? There's a useful calculation being employed by Wall Street, Silicon Valley and maths professors all over the world, and it predicts that the human species will become extinct in 760 years. Unfortunately, there is disagreement over how to apply the formula, and some argue that we might only have twenty years left. Originally devised by British clergyman Thomas Bayes, the theorem languished in obscurity for two hundred years before being resurrected as the lynchpin of the digital economy. With brief detours into archaeology, philology, and overdue library books, William Poundstone explains how we can use it to predict pretty much anything. What is the chance that there are multiple universes? How long will Hamilton run? Will the US stock market continue to perform as well this century as it has for the last hundred years? And are we really all doomed?