For centuries, scientists and charlatans have claimed to know what’s happening tomorrow before tomorrow comes. But how well can we really predict the future? Can past events―Hurricane Katrina, bull markets, the SARS outbreak―help us understand what will happen next? Will scientists ever be able to forecast catastrophes, or will we always be at the mercy of Mother Nature, waiting for the next storm, epidemic or economic crash to thunder through our lives?
In Apollo’s Arrow, Canadian scientist David Orrell looks back at past prognosticators, from the time of the Oracle at Delphi to the rise of astrology to the advent of the nightly news, showing us how scientists (and some charlatans) predicted the future. He asks how today’s scientists can claim to anticipate future weather events when even three-day forecasts prove a serious challenge. Can we predict epidemics? Can we accurately foresee our financial future? Or will we only find out about tomorrow when tomorrow arrives?
The trajectory of an arrow is something that can be determined reasonably accurately from the arrow’s starting position and its velocity using the laws of physics. But if there’s a gust of wind that is not included in the model, then the arrow will depart slightly from its predicted path. Might not be important, unless you happen to be the person waiting at the other end with the apple on your head. 
Studies have shown that social forecasting, scientific and otherwise, is about as accurate as random guessing, despite the vast numbers of highly paid experts employed to do it. If the futurologists of the 1960s had been right, for example, I would probably be writing this in an orbital space station as my personal robot tends to my toenails.―from Apollo’s Arrow

Apollo's Arrow

Science & Math

Orrell, David

Essays & Commentary

HARPER/COLLINS

From seers to scientists, mystics to meteorologists, there have always been peoplewho claim to know what will happen in the future. The Oracle at Delphi, Pythagoras, Newton and the stock analyst on a business report have all endeavoured to look forward in time. But even with recent technological advances and the help of computers and satellites, are we any better at predicting the future now than we were in the distant past? How can scientists claim to foresee future climate events when even three-day forecasts prove a serious challenge?In Apollo’s Arrow, David Orrell looks at the history of prognostication to show how scientists (and charlatans) have tried to forecast the future. He then breaks down the mathematics of what really goes into apredictive model. Orrell has created a compelling, elegantly written history of our future that addresses some of the most important issues of our time.

History & Philosophy

Harper-perennial

In this sweeping book, applied mathematician and popular author David Orrell questions the promises and pitfalls of associating beauty with truth, showing how ideas of mathematical elegance have inspired—and have sometimes misled—scientists attempting to understand nature.Orrell shows how the ancient Greeks constructed a concept of the world based on musical harmony; later thinkers replaced this model with a program, based on Newton’s “rational mechanics,” to reduce the universe to a few simple equations. He then turns to current physical theories, such as supersymmetric string theory—again influenced by deep aesthetic principles. The book sheds new light on historical investigations and also recent research, including the examinations ongoing at the Large Hadron Collider. Finally, broadening his discussion to other fields of research, including economics, architecture, and health, Orrell questions whether these aesthetic principles reflect an accurate way to explain and understand the structure of our world.

Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order

Oxford University Press

The Evolution of Money

The sharing economy's unique customer-to-company exchange is possible because of the way in which money has evolved. These transactions have not always been as fluid as they are today, and they are likely to become even more fluid. It is therefore critical that we learn to appreciate money's elastic nature as deeply as do Uber, Airbnb, Kickstarter, and other innovators, and that we understand money's transition from hard currencies to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin if we are to access their cooperative potential. The Evolution of Money illuminates this fascinating reality, focusing on the tension between currency's real and abstract properties and advancing a vital theory of money rooted in this dual exchange. It begins with the debt tablets of Mesopotamia and follows with the development of coin money in ancient Greece and Rome, gold-backed currencies in medieval Europe, and monetary economics in Victorian England. The book ends in the digital era, with the cryptocurrencies and service providers that are making the most of money's virtual side and that suggest a tectonic shift in what we call money. By building this organic time line, The Evolution of Money helps us anticipate money's next, transformative role.

Business & Money

Chlupatý, Roman

Economics

Columbia University Press

In this sweeping book, applied mathematician and popular author David Orrell questions the promises and pitfalls of associating beauty with truth, showing how ideas of mathematical elegance have inspired—and have sometimes misled—scientists attempting to understand nature.
Orrell shows how the ancient Greeks constructed a concept of the world based on musical harmony; later thinkers replaced this model with a program, based on Newton’s “rational mechanics,” to reduce the universe to a few simple equations. He then turns to current physical theories, such as supersymmetric string theory—again influenced by deep aesthetic principles. The book sheds new light on historical investigations and also recent research, including the examinations ongoing at the Large Hadron Collider. Finally, broadening his discussion to other fields of research, including economics, architecture, and health, Orrell questions whether these aesthetic principles reflect an accurate way to explain and understand the structure of our world.

Yale University Press

From the inability of wealth to make us happier, to our catastrophic blindness to the credit crunch, Economyths reveals ten ways in which economics has failed us all.Forecasters predicted a prosperous year in 2008 for financial markets - in one influential survey the average prediction was for an eleven percent gain. But by the end of the year, the Standard and Poor's 500 index - a key economic barometer - was down 38 percent, and major economies were plunging into recession. Even the Queen asked - "Why did no one see it coming?" An even bigger casualty was the credibility of economics, which for decades has claimed that the economy is a rational, stable, efficient machine, governed by well-understood laws. Mathematician David Orrell traces the history of this idea from its roots in ancient Greece to the financial centres of London and New York, shows how it is mistaken, and proposes new alternatives. Economyths explains how the economy is the result of complex and unpredictable processes; how risk models go astray; why the economy is not rational or fair; why until 2009 no woman had ever won the Nobel Prize for economics; why financial crashes are less Black Swans than part of the landscape; and finally, how new ideas in mathematics, psychology, and environmentalism are helping to reinvent economics. Economyths was a finalist for the 2011 National Business Book Award (Canada).

Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong

wiley

Explore the deadly elegance of finance's hidden powerhouse The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. Written not from a post-crisis perspective – but from a preventative point of view – this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You'll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest. 
Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. By exploring the heart of the shadow economy, you'll be better prepared to ride the rough waves of finance into the turbulent future. 
<ul>
<li>Delve into one of the world's least-understood but highest-impact industries</li> <li>Understand the key principles of quantitative finance and the evolution of the field</li> <li>Learn what quantitative finance has become, and how it affects us all</li> <li>Discover how the industry's next steps dictate the economy's future</li> </ul>
How do you create a quadrillion dollars out of nothing, blow it away and leave a hole so large that even years of "quantitative easing" can't fill it – and then go back to doing the same thing? Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.

The Money Formula: Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets

Wilmott, Paul

For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimize our own "utility." Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don't really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to "cognitive biases" with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement. In this book, David Orrell explores the findings from psychology and neuroscience that are shaking up economics--and that are being exploited by policy-makers and marketers alike to shape everything from how we shop for food to how we tackle societal happiness or climate change. Finally, he asks whether behavioural economics is a scientific revolution or just a scientific form of marketing.

Behavioural Economics: Psychology, neuroscience, and the human side of economics (Hot Science)

Marketing & Sales

Dreamscape Media

When Economyths was first published by Wiley in 2010, David Orrell showed how mainstream economics is based on key myths such as fair competition, rational behaviour, stability and eternal growth – and how these myths lead paradoxically to their opposites: inequality, an irrational economy, financial instability and a collision with nature’s limits. Since then, we’ve had Occupy, political upheaval, flash crashes in financial markets, the warmest few years in recorded history – and a growing chorus demanding fundamental reform. So how has economics responded? In this revised and expanded edition, Orrell shows how the ten myths still dominate economics. He reveals their roots in thought that goes back to the ancient Greeks, making them hard to dislodge. And he uncovers, demolishes and develops an alternative to the greatest economyth of all – the one that will lead to the collapse of orthodox economics.

Economyths: 11 Ways Economics Gets it Wrong

Icon Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Orrell, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Orrell, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Orrell, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Apollo's Arrow

Apollo's Arrow

Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order

The Evolution of Money

The Evolution of Money

Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order

Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong

The Money Formula: Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets

Behavioural Economics: Psychology, neuroscience, and the human side of economics (Hot Science)

Economyths: 11 Ways Economics Gets it Wrong