A prediction is a description of a future state of a system.
Excerpt from Wikipedia
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction
Date: 24-Apr-2015
A prediction (Latin præ-, “before,” and dicere, “to say”) or forecast is a statement about the way things will happen in the future, often but not always based on experience or knowledge. While there is much overlap between prediction and forecast, a prediction may be a statement that some outcome is expected, while a forecast is more specific, and may cover a range of possible outcomes. A “prediction” may be contrasted with a “projection”, which is explicitly dependent on stated assumptions.
Although guaranteed accurate information about the future is in many cases impossible, prediction can be useful to assist in making plans about possible developments.
Prediction in Science
In science, a prediction is a rigorous, often quantitative, statement, forecasting what will happen under specific conditions; for example, if an apple falls from a tree it will be attracted towards the center of the earth by gravity with a specified and constant acceleration. The scientific method is built on testing statements that are logical consequences of scientific theories. This is done through repeatable experiments or observational studies.
A scientific theory which is contradicted by observations and evidence will be rejected. New theories that generate many new predictions can more easily be supported or falsified (see predictive power). Notions that make no testable predictions are usually considered not to be part of science (protoscience or nescience) until testable predictions can be made.
Mathematical equations and models, and computer models, are frequently used to describe the past and future behavior of a process within the boundaries of that model. In some cases the probability of an outcome, rather than a specific outcome, can be predicted, for example in much of quantum physics.
In microprocessors, branch prediction permits avoidance of pipeline emptying at branch instructions. In engineering, possible failure modes are predicted and avoided by correcting the mechanism causing the failure.
Accurate prediction and forecasting are very difficult in some areas, such as natural disasters, pandemics, demography, population dynamics and meteorology. For example, it is possible to predict the occurrence of solar cycles, but their exact timing and magnitude is much more difficult.
Scientific Hypothesis and Prediction
Established science makes useful predictions which are often extremely reliable and accurate; for example, eclipses are routinely predicted.
New theories make predictions which allow them to be disproved if the predictions are not borne out in reality. For example, in the early 20th century the scientific consensus was that there existed an absolute frame of reference, which was given the name luminiferous ether. The existence of this absolute frame was deemed necessary for consistency with the established idea that the speed of light is constant. The famous Michelson-Morley experiment demonstrated that predictions deduced from this concept were not borne out in reality, thus disproving the theory of an absolute frame of reference. The special theory of relativity was proposed by Einstein as an explanation for the seeming inconsistency between the constancy of the speed of light and the non-existence of a special, preferred or absolute frame of reference.
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity could not easily be tested as it did not produce any effects observable on a terrestrial scale. However, the theory predicted that large masses such as stars would bend light, in contradiction to accepted theory; this was observed in a 1919 eclipse. [More precisely, they bend the space through which light travels. -MKL]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29#Beyond_fiction
Date: 24-Apri-2015
Polymath Adolphe Quetelet developed in the 19th century what he called “social physics”. Quetelet studied the statistical laws underlying the behaviour of what he called “average man”.
Some individuals and groups, inspired by Asimov’s psychohistory, seriously explore the possibility of a working psychohistory not unlike the one imagined by Asimov — a statistical study of history that could help in the formulation of some “theory of history” and perhaps become a tool of historical prediction.
Complexity theory, an offshoot of chaos mathematics theory, explored by Stuart Kauffman in his books At Home in the Universe and Redefining the Sacred cover the concept of statistical modeling of sociological evolutions. The concept was also explored in Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine.
Another theory that has similarities to Psychohistory is “Generational Dynamics” proposed by John J. Xenakis, where he proposes, “Generational Dynamics is a historical methodology that analyzes historical events through the flow of generations, and uses the analysis to forecast future events by comparing today’s generational attitudes to those of the past”. Essentially, generations immediately after a major crisis event (civil war, world war) will be unwilling to live through such events again and will be risk-averse. Generations after them may well be aware of previous crisis events, but will be more risk-tolerant, as they have not been exposed to the crisis themselves. Xenakis states that this allows one to predict future crisis events by analyzing the current generation’s outlooks.
For similar ideas, see Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War: The Life Cycles of Imperial Nations. His science is called cliodynamics.
Nathan Eagle and Alex Pentland (among others) have developed useful techniques for predicting human behavior through statistical analysis of smartphone data.
At the 67th science-fiction world convention in Montreal, Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in Economics, mentioned Hari Seldon, a central character in Foundation who was a psychohistorian, as his inspiration to study economics since it’s the closest thing to Psychohistory, according to P. Krugman.
The Living Earth Simulator, a platform of the proposed FuturICT project, aims to simulate social and economic developments on a global scale in order to anticipate and predict global phenomena, like for example financial crisis. For similar ideas, see Dan Braha’s work on predicting the behavior of global civil unrest. This work demonstrates, based on historical records and mathematical modeling, the existence of universal patterns of collective unrest across countries and regions.
The evolving field of Behavioral Economics embodies elements of Asimov’s Psychohistory without attribution.
Literary Influences
Some literary critics have described Asimov’s psychohistory as a reformulation, either for better or worse, of Karl Marx’s theory of history (historical materialism), though Asimov denied any direct influence. Arguably, Asimov’s psychohistory departs significantly from Marx’s general theory of history based on modes of production (as distinct from Marx’s model of the capitalist economy, where “natural laws” work themselves out with “iron necessity”) in that psychohistory is predictive (if only in the sense of involving precisely stated probabilities), and in that psychohistory is extrapolated from individual psychology and even from physics. Psychohistory also has echoes of modernization theory and of work in the social sciences that by the 1960s would lead to attempts at large-scale social prediction and control such as Project Camelot.