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posted by
cmn32480
on Sunday May 08 2016, @11:49PM
from the I-can't-solve-DiffEq-with-a-computer dept.
from the I-can't-solve-DiffEq-with-a-computer dept.
This just in from the front lines of the War on the Unusual:
University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio was solving a set of differential equations on a plane departing the Philadelphia airport when the woman next to him surreptitiously passed a note to a flight attendant telling them she thought he was a terrorist because of the strange things he was writing on a pad of paper. The plane returned to the gate where he was questioned. At least this time the pilot had enough sense not to kick him off the flight.
Remember folks, if you see something say something!
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UPenn Professor Solving DiffEQ on Scratchpad Causes Plane to Return to Gate
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 09 2016, @03:52PM
The point about economics, is that the models are based to a certain degree, upon rational actors.
If there's one thing that we know about the population at large...
Actually, that reliance on rational actors is a myth. If it were that easy you could solve all economic problems sitting in a chair. Economics is all about actively measuring what happens. Actors don't have to be rational, because you don't care about Joe, just Joe Average, and his ilk.
And the assumption that the entire field of economics has anything at all to do with stock brokers is another huge misconception.
Its as much about cheese prices and the flow of money than anything else. All very measurable things. Which is why economists end up being stat-heads. Economics is a "descriptive" science, not an "experimental" one. There is actually very little work done in the way of experimental protocols,
Its more about noticing that when too much milk is produced, one of the ways the market reacts is to store milk for leaner times by making cheese. Governments may want to tinker with the demand for cheese to help dairy farmers, but that's not the economist's fault, any more than it is the Ornithologist's fault that tinkering with the amount of sunflower seeds in a bird feeder can be used to attract more gold finches.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by opinionated_science on Monday May 09 2016, @04:45PM
Well my point about "rational actors" is the dogma of low-price , higher volume.
My main criticism of the models used, is the lack of time-dependent effects, and the complete ignorance of entropy (in a closed system).
In molecular systems where we couple microscopic movements to macroscopic properties, we have a configurational integral that defines the partition function of a system.
In economics there are far less stringent couplings, that for example, do not recognise the fundamental limits of human activity - the implicit sampling timestep, that causes inequalities of rational action.
Anyone ever wondered why the news on a sunday is so slow? Or why the markets close at certain times? Obviously this is accommodates human behaviour and as a result, this manifests discontinuous trajectories for the economic system. But for global, continuous processes (interest rates are only calculated at a certain time - the rates are continous), how does one account for zero-inflation processes?
We have anti-inflation in technology, due to the exponential growth of computational power at constant cost. A side-effect is the infinitesimal cost of second item e.g. software, music, video etc....
Time-delayed differential equations oscillate - and I hypothesize the huge diversity of modern time-constants (where some things are slow, others ultra fast) has reached beyond previous decades of thought in this area, due to the lack of new tools.
I know how to prove my molecules are behaving right - I do not think the econmists can say the same thing...
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Monday May 09 2016, @06:54PM
I know how to prove my molecules are behaving right - I do not think the econmists can say the same thing...
But its just your unfamiliarity with the entire field of Economics that leads you to the false assumption that they care to make such a determination, - and more importantly - that economics operates with an assumption that there is such a thing as "behaving right".
You might just as well grouse that the fish don't pedal the bicycle in the most efficient way as complain that the Economist can't measure the "rightness" of individual behavior.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday May 09 2016, @07:26PM
I modded you funny, because you're right! I know nothing formal about economics, but when a professor cannot defend themselves with anything other than hand waving, I feel my grasp of precision is perhaps moot....
There's always room for improvement, and I'm holding out for some computer models ;-)