Related papers: "Bubbles in Society": The Example of the United St…
We take a fresh look at about 60 years of recommendations for US federal funding for astronomical and astrophysical facilities provided by seven survey committees at roughly 10-year intervals. It remains true that very roughly one third of…
Astrophysics is a social enterprise exemplified here by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) which completed its fieldwork in 2019 after 16 years of preparation and observation, while data analysis continues. Society funds astrophysics on a grand…
We consider a population that experienced a first wave of infections, interrupted by strong, top-down, governmental restrictions and did not develop a significant immunity to prevent a second wave (i.e. resurgence). As restrictions are…
What is the role of social interactions in the creation of price bubbles? Answering this question requires obtaining collective behavioural traces generated by the activity of a large number of actors. Digital currencies offer a unique…
The national space programs have an historic opportunity to help solve the global-scale economic and environmental problems of Earth while becoming more effective at science through the use of space resources. Space programs will be more…
Social media influence online activity by recommending to users content strongly correlated with what they have preferred in the past. In this way they constrain users within filter bubbles that strongly limit their exposure to new or…
Asset price bubbles are situations where asset prices exceed the fundamental values defined by the present value of dividends. This paper presents a conceptually new perspective: the necessity of bubbles. We establish the Bubble Necessity…
For centuries, bubbles have fascinated artists, engineers, and scientists alike. In spite of century-long research on them, new and often surprising bubble phenomena, features, and applications keep popping up. In this paper I sketch my…
We argue that the present crisis and stalling economy continuing since 2007 are rooted in the delusionary belief in policies based on a "perpetual money machine" type of thinking. We document strong evidence that, since the early 1980s,…
The substantial turmoil created by both 2000 dot-com crash and 2008 subprime crisis has fueled the belief that the two classical paradigms of economics, which are the invisible hand and the rational agent, are not appropriate to describe…
As the next decade approaches, it is once again time for the US astronomical community to assess its investment priorities for the coming decade on the ground and in space. This report, created to aid NOAO in its planning for the 2020…
Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game-changing for the prospects of space industry. It has become feasible to bootstrap a self-sustaining, self-expanding industry at reasonably low cost. Simple modeling was…
We present a self-consistent model for explosive financial bubbles, which combines a mean-reverting volatility process and a stochastic conditional return which reflects nonlinear positive feedbacks and continuous updates of the investors'…
The dawning of the Space Age marked the start of an ongoing relationship between the professional astronomical community and both state and non-state actors that launch and operate spacecraft in near-Earth orbital space. While the Cold War…
One of the main difficulties in a class on Sources of Energy and Social Policy is the wide variety of units used by different technologists (BTU's, Barrels of oil, Quads, kWh, etc). As every student eats, I think some of this confusion can…
We present PLUTO (Public VaLUe Assessment TOol), a framework for assessing the public value of specific instances of data use. Grounded in the concept of data solidarity, PLUTO aims to empower diverse stakeholders-including regulatory…
We define a financial bubble as a period of unsustainable growth, when the price of an asset increases ever more quickly, in a series of accelerating phases of corrections and rebounds. More technically, during a bubble phase, the price…
Pertaining to Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE), this work presents two models for the rise and downfall of speculative bubbles through an exchange price fixing based on double auction mechanisms. The first model is based on a…
This systematic review synthesizes research on echo chambers and filter bubbles to explore the reasons behind dissent regarding their existence, antecedents, and effects. It provides a taxonomy of conceptualizations and operationalizations,…
This article explores the concept of technological singularity and the factors that could accelerate or hinder its arrival. The butterfly effect is used as a framework to understand how seemingly small changes in complex systems can have…