Sunday, October 2, 2016
Thinking in Systems, Donella H. Meadows, Chelsea Green Publishing. (2008)
Donella H. "Dana" Meadows died in 2001, the draft of this book was completed in 1993. The draft was edited and published by Diana Wright in 2008. This book contains a distillation of the work initiated at MIT by Jay Forrester and the MIT System Dynamics group. Systems thinking is applicable in many areas. This may well be the best introduction.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
The Limits to Growth, Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, William W. Behrens III, Universe Books. (1972)
This book reported on a computer project and reported on the predicament of mankind, it was a report for the Club of Rome. For many this was the first book of its kind and it was for many, the point where they realized that there were limits to growth.
The idea was not new, I was introduced to the idea by my history teacher Charles B. Fielding. Mr. Fielding was not famous, nor a well known academic. As I recall, Mr. Fielding was from Barrow-in-Furness, he was a teacher at several schools in Swansea, Wales. He was, simply, the best teacher that I have ever known - and he deserves much of the credit for my skills as writer and an analytical thinker. It is of interest, and says much for the value of a liberal arts education, that the two most influential people in my education were historians. Charles Fielding was one, the other was the renowned Swansea historian Norman Lewis Thomas, who was at school with my father. They of course didn't contribute to the development of my mathematical skills, but that is a story for another time. Mr. Fielding inspired me to read Thomas Malthus; An Essay on the Principles of Population (2nd Edition, 1803) by Malthus is the true source of all work on the limits to growth.
Later work that predates the Club of Rome efforts is that of M. King Hubbert, Hubbert focuses on resources - the Limits to Growth would have been better if it had been informed by some of Hubbert's ideas.
Since this work has been updated many times, I will note that this is a book that everyone who is interested in growth and the limits to growth should read. It is easy to read because it has been made available on the web. The original can be legally downloaded from the Donella Meadows Institute. Since the original work has been greatly modified and updated since it was published, I will save a detailed review for a later version. At this point, I will say that if you are not familiar with Meadows, you should download this now. Resource limitations, conservation, and climate change should not be political issues, they are critical to the future that we are creating for our children and grandchildren.
The idea was not new, I was introduced to the idea by my history teacher Charles B. Fielding. Mr. Fielding was not famous, nor a well known academic. As I recall, Mr. Fielding was from Barrow-in-Furness, he was a teacher at several schools in Swansea, Wales. He was, simply, the best teacher that I have ever known - and he deserves much of the credit for my skills as writer and an analytical thinker. It is of interest, and says much for the value of a liberal arts education, that the two most influential people in my education were historians. Charles Fielding was one, the other was the renowned Swansea historian Norman Lewis Thomas, who was at school with my father. They of course didn't contribute to the development of my mathematical skills, but that is a story for another time. Mr. Fielding inspired me to read Thomas Malthus; An Essay on the Principles of Population (2nd Edition, 1803) by Malthus is the true source of all work on the limits to growth.
Later work that predates the Club of Rome efforts is that of M. King Hubbert, Hubbert focuses on resources - the Limits to Growth would have been better if it had been informed by some of Hubbert's ideas.
Since this work has been updated many times, I will note that this is a book that everyone who is interested in growth and the limits to growth should read. It is easy to read because it has been made available on the web. The original can be legally downloaded from the Donella Meadows Institute. Since the original work has been greatly modified and updated since it was published, I will save a detailed review for a later version. At this point, I will say that if you are not familiar with Meadows, you should download this now. Resource limitations, conservation, and climate change should not be political issues, they are critical to the future that we are creating for our children and grandchildren.
The Art of Modeling Dynamic Systems, Foster Morrison, Dover Reprint of a John Wiley book (1991, 2008)
Long ago, before Amazon.com there was a scientific book club modeled after the venerable Book of the Month Club - which I was surprised to find still exists. The model was the same, you got four books for a dollar, and then you got a monthly magazine with reviews of other books, and you had to buy four more books at the regular price within a year or two to fulfill your membership agreement. A selection was scheduled each month, which you got if you didn't remember to send in your postcard saying you didn't want the selection. There were similar club for long-playing records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and DVDs, most (I actually thought all) are extinct by now.
I'm pretty sure that I got my original copy of this book because I didn't return the reply card, but its possible that I ordered it. Either way, it is one of the best purchases that I ever made, and I would never have found it without the club, which I think was called the Library of Science, and astoundingly it still exists, I just checked, hence the link. I guess that many of the old clubs have go online. Anyway, in 1991 the World-Wide Web didn't exist, I had just got an e-mail account, and things like Gopher were just being developed. Information was hard to find, and you learned about new books if they were reviewed and when they appeared in reference lists.
Morrison's book, which has the subtitle Forecasting for Chaos, Randomness, and Determinism, was an eye opener. This is where I learned about modeling and forecasting and that it was possible to study dynamic systems without calculus (I admit it was many years before I realized that there were advantages to this approach.) The Dover book has a couple of extra diagrams from Morrison's papers at Federal Forecasters Conferences, and and some added references, but it largely unchanged. So if you want to learn the basics of modeling and forecasting, this is a good place to start. The book still doesn't make more than a passing reference the System Dynamics work in Jay Forrester's group at MIT, or the related work of Donella Meadows. Both groups would have benefited from collaborations, if the system dynamics people had talked to the forecasters, the system dynamics groups would not have neglected to use resources in their models! I will revisit some of the other work in this area over the next few months.
I'm pretty sure that I got my original copy of this book because I didn't return the reply card, but its possible that I ordered it. Either way, it is one of the best purchases that I ever made, and I would never have found it without the club, which I think was called the Library of Science, and astoundingly it still exists, I just checked, hence the link. I guess that many of the old clubs have go online. Anyway, in 1991 the World-Wide Web didn't exist, I had just got an e-mail account, and things like Gopher were just being developed. Information was hard to find, and you learned about new books if they were reviewed and when they appeared in reference lists.
Morrison's book, which has the subtitle Forecasting for Chaos, Randomness, and Determinism, was an eye opener. This is where I learned about modeling and forecasting and that it was possible to study dynamic systems without calculus (I admit it was many years before I realized that there were advantages to this approach.) The Dover book has a couple of extra diagrams from Morrison's papers at Federal Forecasters Conferences, and and some added references, but it largely unchanged. So if you want to learn the basics of modeling and forecasting, this is a good place to start. The book still doesn't make more than a passing reference the System Dynamics work in Jay Forrester's group at MIT, or the related work of Donella Meadows. Both groups would have benefited from collaborations, if the system dynamics people had talked to the forecasters, the system dynamics groups would not have neglected to use resources in their models! I will revisit some of the other work in this area over the next few months.
Modeling the Environment, 2nd Ed., Andrew Ford, Island Press. (2010)
When I'm not working on physics or an administrative task, but am still working, I am most likely to be doing something in the area of forecasting, modeling and data science. Most of the modeling that I have done has been using Fortran, Python, or Matlab. I am aware that many others do modeling, environmental scientists, economists, sociologists, and others. So my question has always been: How can you do dynamics systems modeling if you have little or no experience with calculus and differential equations. Well, the answer, in part, can be found in this book. You can use software that does all the higher level mathematics behind the scenes, and as a modeler, you can focus on stocks, flows, feedback, and timescales.
The book is clear and detailed, and it soon becomes clear that modeling of this kind has its place. I am going to add the methods to the methods that I regularly use. As well as describing the modeling process, the book serves as an introduction to two widely used computer tools, Stella and Vensim. I have been using Vensim as you can download Vensim PLE (Personal Learners Edition) for evaluation or educational purposes at no cost. The book has more examples in Stella, but translating between the two is relatively straightforward. I recommend that your familiarize with these modern modeling tools.
The book is clear and detailed, and it soon becomes clear that modeling of this kind has its place. I am going to add the methods to the methods that I regularly use. As well as describing the modeling process, the book serves as an introduction to two widely used computer tools, Stella and Vensim. I have been using Vensim as you can download Vensim PLE (Personal Learners Edition) for evaluation or educational purposes at no cost. The book has more examples in Stella, but translating between the two is relatively straightforward. I recommend that your familiarize with these modern modeling tools.
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