Post by 4aapl on May 6, 2023 11:05:47 GMT -8
The End of Everything (Astrophysical speaking) by Katie Mack
This was on a top 10 physics book for those not in physics list, or something like that, which Firefox fed me. I had previously read one by Richard Feynman, decades before seeing this list, so was curious.
Never having thought too much about space, its limits, its expansion (or contraction), etc, this book by a theoretical astrophysicist had some tough parts. It talked of 5 possibly ways for everything to end, far in the distant future, long after our solar system is destroyed by the sun. Fun stuff.
Still, like most things there were some nuggets of info that splashed over to different realms:
"One of the things I love about cosmology is how much it requires thinking creatively, trying to approach the physics of the universe from a totally new direction. This doesn't mean fully unconstrained flights of fancy. You can't just randomly make stuff up. But what you can (and must) do is constantly find new ways to look at problems to wring a little more insight out of whatever data the universe has to offer."
I see this applying to the market, trying to understand. At the same time, a little later she talked of the joy in finding something that worked in consistently explaining something.
I guess that's part of my drive with trying to "understand" the market, but that end part isn't there, of consistently explaining something. The market might react one way one time, and another a different time. A simple example of this is interest rates going up, and it depends on when in the cycle that is, and how powerful the drive is being that. But there are other times where it is not as easily predicted, and it's not just from a sprinkling of randomness. Sure, there are lots of variables that play in together, with different weightings each time. But it probably comes down humans, between greed and trying to compete.
"This time is different", because each time is different. Sometimes they are a little closer to "past performance" than others, and there might be a good zone of probability made by looking at how things have worked before. But each time is a little different, so especially if really trying to push the boundaries on performance, to get something that would exactly define things, it seems like it is just not possible.
Maybe instead the best we can hope for is a similarity to a short term weather forecast, where there is a 30% chance of snow, 1-3 inches possible, with winds 15-25 mph. It gets us in the right mindset, and maybe we don't want to plan a beach day, but it's not exact by any means.
Anyways, it was a good read, even if a tough read. Sometimes pushing your own boundaries makes all of the other stuff much easier. I've sure found that on the ski slope, both with myself, but also when teaching the kids and cousins.
This was on a top 10 physics book for those not in physics list, or something like that, which Firefox fed me. I had previously read one by Richard Feynman, decades before seeing this list, so was curious.
Never having thought too much about space, its limits, its expansion (or contraction), etc, this book by a theoretical astrophysicist had some tough parts. It talked of 5 possibly ways for everything to end, far in the distant future, long after our solar system is destroyed by the sun. Fun stuff.
Still, like most things there were some nuggets of info that splashed over to different realms:
"One of the things I love about cosmology is how much it requires thinking creatively, trying to approach the physics of the universe from a totally new direction. This doesn't mean fully unconstrained flights of fancy. You can't just randomly make stuff up. But what you can (and must) do is constantly find new ways to look at problems to wring a little more insight out of whatever data the universe has to offer."
I see this applying to the market, trying to understand. At the same time, a little later she talked of the joy in finding something that worked in consistently explaining something.
I guess that's part of my drive with trying to "understand" the market, but that end part isn't there, of consistently explaining something. The market might react one way one time, and another a different time. A simple example of this is interest rates going up, and it depends on when in the cycle that is, and how powerful the drive is being that. But there are other times where it is not as easily predicted, and it's not just from a sprinkling of randomness. Sure, there are lots of variables that play in together, with different weightings each time. But it probably comes down humans, between greed and trying to compete.
"This time is different", because each time is different. Sometimes they are a little closer to "past performance" than others, and there might be a good zone of probability made by looking at how things have worked before. But each time is a little different, so especially if really trying to push the boundaries on performance, to get something that would exactly define things, it seems like it is just not possible.
Maybe instead the best we can hope for is a similarity to a short term weather forecast, where there is a 30% chance of snow, 1-3 inches possible, with winds 15-25 mph. It gets us in the right mindset, and maybe we don't want to plan a beach day, but it's not exact by any means.
Anyways, it was a good read, even if a tough read. Sometimes pushing your own boundaries makes all of the other stuff much easier. I've sure found that on the ski slope, both with myself, but also when teaching the kids and cousins.