Variation of the Frequency of Fatal Quarrels With Magnitude
Just a heads up, what Sean finds is actually a very old result that is well-known in social science. In fact, it was first discovered about sixty years ago by a meteorologist.
http://www.drewconway.com/zia/?p=577
I am a bit surprised it is getting the coverage that it is.
People and numbers don't mix well. Attempts to mathematically model
human interaction will always show patterns -- and different modelers will draw different patterns from the same data. You cannot put people in boxes IMO; you have to deal with the person or group as they are and as they constantly shift and change.
Well, you can put 'em in boxes and rely on trends, I suppose. Seen a lot of folks do some fascinating variations on that. None successfully, as I recall...
All things considered, though, I don't guess a Physicist playing around with the People thing is any worse than Economists trying to do that...
Most of America already benefits from mathematical modeling and simulation
Mathematical modeling and simulation (war gaming) allows anybody who is willing to spend the time, effort, or resources to cost effectively examine various scenarios. From this examination one can develop probable costs, schedules, and benchmarks associated with a particular endeavor and chose the one most likely to result in success. As with any methodology, advice derived from mathematical modeling and simulation does not give a leader a magic pass to ignore common sense nor is it to be feared as voodoo magic whose use will consign our souls to the lowest circles of hell.
America as a whole understands the importance of war-gaming at a very deep level; note our world-renowned college educational system and until recently, our possession of the worlds strongest financial system. Our college system consistently explores the concepts of mathematical modeling and simulation in associate through graduate educational programs in business, engineering, finance, and manufacturing – all disciplines that are crucial to a nations ability to survive and thrive. When the immediate dust of the current financial debacle settles, I expect that we will still have the strongest financial system...however we have permanently damaged ourselves and it will take time and effort to recover.
The Economists 2009 Pocket World in Figures ranks economies by GDP in USD:
1. America 13,164 billion
2. Japan 4,368 billion
3. Germany 2,897
4. China 2,645 billion
5. United Kingdom 2,377 billion
In the US military the Air Force and Navy have taken a page from the successes of the civilian world (and of course vice versa) and worked to incorporate the use of mathematical modeling and simulation into their daily operations. We in much of the US Army still prefer to war game things in the physical world: our Combat Training Centers are heavily resourced examples of this preference. We in the Army are slowly, when compared to my civilian experiences, moving in the direction of incorporating mathematical modeling and simulation into our TTP’s. This journey will take time, have setbacks, and generally be a PITA however when balanced against the adapt or die imperative it’s an easy choice to make.
@ Mike F. - Thanks for starting the discussion and providing the Ted link.
The Displacement of Energy
“exactly what are vertical and horizontal forces?”
War has been defined by many descriptions, but it simply is the displacement of energy, from one orientation into another. This is the main reason the power-law distribution applies to war. There are two forms of energy inside every displacement, kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy has mostly a component of Vertical force, while potential energy has mostly a component of horizontal force. Together the vertical and horizontal forces move the displacement from potential to kinetic and back again. It works in a loop and that loop, to some, is called an OODA loop.
Vertical forces are the forces that the horizontal forces of a country are able to support. The horizontal force is the amount of force between you and I, which is growing. Actually, the horizontal force is the amount of force a society has between its past and future, but it is not always (never) figured in that way.
Force at a distance is the definition of energy. When the vertical force moves, the distance from one country to another, it is called kinetic energy. The amount of power, energy per second, a country can throw at another country depends on how much vertical force the horizontal force can support, @ the distance and over time.
My guess why the power-law distribution “works” in Iraq or any war is that Alpha describes the structure of the insurgency and that structure, in Iraq, represents the orientation on the other side of the power curve of the US, and to a degree the Iraqi Security Forces. The Data is not for a particular orientation (religious, warlords, tribes, or thugs) only that orientation opposing the new Orientation. I capitalized the last Orientation because it represents the second "O" in the OODA loop (Orientation is what a vertical force does after it Penetrates the Observed environment of another displacement; it Isolates the displacement into Orientations, isolation does not always mean: to kill).