Modeling Dynamic Systems

Abstract

Our book is the vigorous claim that we are neither vagabonds nor rogues. Throughout, we are trying to reveal the technical aspects as well as the open-ended art of modeling. We have worked as though possessed with the thought of Conquest’s conviction. And the verdict is not yet returned.

Indeed, from Pythagoras through pyramidology, extreme irrationalities have often been presented in numerical form. Astrology for centuries used the most sophisticated mathematical treatments available—and is now worked out on computers: though there is, or used to be, an English law which provided that “every person pretending or professing to tell Fortunes, or using any subtle Craft, Means or Device ... shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond.” (Conquest 1993)