David Orrell at Art Center Global Dialogues

David John Orrell (born 1962 in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

writer and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He received his doctorate in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. His work in the prediction of

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...

such as the

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

and the

economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

has been featured in

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

, the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

Adbusters The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based Nonprofit organization, not-for-profit, Environmentalism, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia. Adbusters describes itself ...

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...

Russia-1 Russia-1 (russian: Россия-1) is a state-owned Russian television channel, first aired on 14 February 1956 as Programme Two in the Soviet Union. It was relaunched as RTR on 13 May 1991, and is known today as Russia-1. It is the flagship ch ...

, and CBC TV. He now conducts research and writes in the areas of

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

, and runs a mathematical consultancy Systems Forecasting. He is the son of theatre historian and English professor

John Orrell John Orrell (December 31, 1934 – September 16, 2003) was a British author, theatre historian, and English professor at the University of Alberta. The ''New York Times'' described him as the "historian whose intellectual detective work laid t ...

. His books have been translated into over ten languages. '' Apollo's Arrow: The Science of Prediction and the Future of Everything'' was a national bestseller and finalist for the 2007 Canadian Science Writers' Award. ''

Economyths ''Economyths'' is a book by the mathematician David Orrell about the problems with mainstream economics, written for the general reader. The book was initially published in 2010 by Icon Books in the UK with the subtitle ''Ten Ways That Economics ...

: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong'' was a finalist for the 2011 National Business Book Award.

Criticism of use of mathematical models

A consistent topic in Orrell’s work is the limitations of mathematical models, and the need to acknowledge these limitations if we are to understand the causes of forecast error. He argues for example that errors in weather prediction are caused primarily by model error, rather than the butterfly effect.

Economic model In economics, a model is a theoretical construct representing economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified, often mathematical, framework desig ...

s are seen as particularly unrealistic. In ''Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order'', he suggests that many such theories, along with areas of physics such as

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...

, are motivated largely by the desire to conform with a traditional scientific

aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...

, that is currently being subverted by developments in

complexity science A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication ...

Quantum theory of money and value

Orrell is considered a leading proponent of

quantum finance Quantum finance is an interdisciplinary research field, applying theories and methods developed by quantum physicists and economists in order to solve problems in finance. It is a branch of econophysics. Background on instrument pricing Financ ...

and

quantum economics Quantum economics is an emerging research field which applies mathematical methods and ideas from quantum physics to the field of economics. It is motivated by the belief that economic processes such as financial transactions have much in common wi ...

. In ''The Evolution of Money'' (coauthored with journalist Roman Chlupatý) and a series of articles he proposed a quantum theory of money and value, which states that money has dualistic properties because it combines the properties of an owned and valued thing, with those of abstract number. The fact that these two sides of money are incompatible leads to its complex and often unpredictable behavior. In ''Quantum Economics: The New Science of Money'' he argued that these dualistic properties feed up to affect the economy as a whole.

Books

* * * Revised and extended edition of 2010 book. * * * * * * * * * Published in the U.S. as ''The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction''.

References

External links

David Orrell's homepage

Systems Forecasting

Video of talk on money given for Marshall McLuhan lecture, Berlin 2015

Video of talk on prediction given at TEDx Park Kultury, Moscow in 2012

ABC News - Good Morning America (excerpts from Apollo's Arrow)

* ttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/truth-or-beauty-science-and-the-quest-for-order-by-david-orrell-q0fr556vkmd Sunday Times review of Truth or Beauty*
David Orrell Interview with Rishabh Chaddha on Substack.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orrell, David Canadian non-fiction writers Canadian mathematicians Writers from Edmonton Systems biologists 1962 births Complex systems theory Living people

Criticism of use of mathematical models

Quantum theory of money and value

Books

See also

References

External links