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Avalanche! Coming! Now! Close to the borders of unpredictability
Author(s) -
Ramos Osvanny
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
significance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1740-9713
pISSN - 1740-9705
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2009.00355.x
Subject(s) - heap (data structure) , quake (natural phenomenon) , history , geology , simple (philosophy) , forensic engineering , computer science , seismology , engineering , epistemology , philosophy , algorithm
Earthquakes, evolution, avalanches—even something as simple as grains of sand tumbling down a pile: so many phenomena of nature seem to resist prediction. We still cannot tell when geological stresses will release themselves in a major quake or when the last extra grain of sand will make half the heap avalanche down. But have statisticians been looking in the wrong place? Or are these critical phenomena really inherently unpredictable? They are close to the borders, but still in predictable land, says Osvanny Ramos , one of the authors of an experiment to prove it.