(Ebook) Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools by Johnson, Ann & Johannes, Lenhard

(Ebook) Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools by Johnson, Ann & Johannes, Lenhard

1 Introduction
This book is about predictions. Throughout history, the imagination of
human societies has been captured by the thought of tearing a hole in the
fog of uncertainty and looking into the future. Croesus consulted the Del-
phi oracle, the leading producer of predictions for policy advice at the time,
and then went to war against the Persians. Unfortunately, this cost him his
kingdom: he had misinterpreted the oracle’s prediction that a great empire
would perish. To give a more recent example, climate change is perceived
as a grave global problem. National policies and international treaties are
calibrated according to the ensuing change in temperature, with its predic-
tion relying on computational models and observational data of breath-
taking dimensions. In short, from the sacred to the mundane, from the
long-term to the immediate, predictions guide actions, sometimes to bring
about and sometimes to avoid what has been predicted—sometimes with
success, sometimes with failure.