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The Economist on 100 years of Einstein

 
Paper:ewp-get/0501003
From: Thomas Cool / Thomas Colignatus <   > 
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 09:02:00 +0100

Abstract:
An important aspect for economics and its methodology is the relation between its definitions and the reality that those definitions (should) reflect. Creative minds coin definitions that maximize explanatory power. An example that highlights this phenomenon can be found in physics and notably by the article in The Economist January 1 2005 on 100 years of Einstein. Physics with its methodology has had more impact on economics than the other way round. Physics seems to have become an arcane science and one wonders whether economics goes the same road. Both sciences are in danger of losing touch with reality and either blow up the world or destroy the world's economy if they don't spend close attention to their definitions and their transparancy. While it is most likely that the author simply doesn't understand physics, the exposition may still be beneficial for students of economics and its methodology.

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EconWPA began as a conversation between Bob Parks and Larry Blume on January 28, 1993. I located Paul Ginsparg's archive (then xxx.lanl.gov) and he graciously installed his software on a Sun Sparc system which was supporting the department of economics email and computation. EconWPA began accepting papers July 1, 1993 and had ftp, email, gopher and web interfaces. The web interface for submissions was engineered into existence in July 1995. A complete and catastrophic machine failure in 1999 caused the loss of EconWPA's email new paper announcment service at which time there were over 15,000 subscriptions with over 8,000 unique email addresses.

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A Chinese curse states May you live in intersting times. I have. Bob Parks - Jan 2006