Math Consequences of Percentage Growth Rates Destructive In the Long Run.

Math consequences are the results of relying on some mathematical form for real world development. Christian theology assumed that mathematics was the language God used to create the Universe. This led to beliefs that anything expressed mathematically was Divine and trustworthy.

The notion of all math as being straight from God caused a number of problems over the years. One court philosopher was undone by not knowing basic math. His opponent stated the y=x2 +1. Therefore God exists! He had no reply and had to run away. The technical secret to this argument is that when y=0 x = i-the imaginary square root of one so God would be an imaginary construct.

The simplest mathematical model is the ratio dividing one number by another to produce a mathematical comparison. If you are given a dollar is that a big share or a tiny one? Knowing the total sum available for distribution yields the insightful answer. If your dollar is half the distribution, your share is far bigger than if it is 1/100.

Percentage rates convert simple ratio to a standard format. Everything is measured as parts per hundred or cents on the dollar. This makes the ratio simple and general at the cost of removing any awareness of scale. Ten percent is a nice share—not overly large but also not at all tiny. Ten percent of a dollar is a dime. Ten percent of a million dollars is $100,000. In almost all situations a dime is in no way no how comparable to $100,000.00

Folks are encouraged to appreciate a ten percent growth rate. As an abstract concept it has a nice ring. When actually applied to real world situations, the limitations of this math model depend upon the scale. Squeezing an extra dime from a dollar scale operation is different from pocketing $100 million from a billion dollar venture.

Math consequences are connected to the scale of the numbers. Percentage rate calculations are disconnected from the scale of the reality. As the scale grows the results get to be more and more of a major problem. Percentage rate brokerage commissions are used to encourage larger dollar volume. The unintended consequence is when this encourages high level corruption and a focus upon signing the biggest deal rather than completing the best deal.

Brokers earn their commission by signing a deal without any obligation if that deal eventually falls through. They earn the biggest commission on signing the deal that no one else can close. Together these two principles establish the math consequences of linking campaign promises to campaign contributions that are signed before the election and only completed after the election and other things turn out the right way.

This selects for the most outlandish deals at the highest dollar sums in order to raise the scale of campaign contributions required to win elections. A reasonable deal does not require a crafty broker. The more unreasonable the deal the more the broker earns a big commission for closing it. Math consequences of this is a lot of terrible deals offered in exchange for the large campaign contributions required to win a major election.

Percentage growth rates result in exponentials. The rate of growth is separated from the scale of the quantity growing. Every exponential curve can be approximated by three straight lines. The first and longest line is negligible, virtually flat on Cartesian axes. While the scale is small the growth rate is small. The second is a noticeable but manageable typical linear function.

By the time one has to notice a percentage rate growth scenario it is nearing the end of that linear approximation. Math consequences of waiting to deal with a percentage growth rate left to itself is that by the time it is clearly noticeable it is about to take off into its third approximation. That third line is virtually straight up, off your chart as the rate of growth transcends the current scale.

On a larger scale, the growth curve is just moving from negligible to linear approximation. Back on the original scale, things have gotten unmanageable, huge and growing at a huge rate. By the time and skeptics and conservatives admit there is a problem, things are about to go ballistic and the problem is about to become catastrophic. Math consequences lope along and then strike like a devastating bolt from the blue.

Ratios have their uses and their limits. Converting a simple ratio into a Divine metaphysical certainty is a neat trick. It generally involves a bit of sleight of hand to accomplish. Observed positions and observed times yield ratios that describe the change position as average speed. Making that more exact requires either better measurement or a trick.

Newton chose the trick of imagining the ratio was made infinitely smaller by a process written mathematically. The imaginary conclusion of the process of making the ratio smaller and smaller was called an infinitesimal or a differential. The limitation of the model is that it still remains tied to the actual detail of the observation, despite the mathematical double talk.

Math consequences of this trick of differential calculus arise from the gap between real world limits and mathematical definitions. The work of the early 20th century quantum physics was actually the empirical observation of this gap in the Newtonian definitions of velocity, acceleration, and position. All the measurements were made with changing light patterns (or other electromagnetic radiation traveling at the speed of light).

If your messenger is traveling at a certain speed, how can it bring you news about things happening almost as fast as it does? The choice was to admit that Newton’s laws and Newtonian calculus were actually approximated not divinely precise. This would have required a total re-evaluation of modern physics. In the early years of the 20th century this was the new timing expectation.

However, it was still the final century of the Modern Millennium with the traumatic twist of the Black Death experience still unresolved. Under the paradigm model, a best selling book must be published that presents the new model complete for others to rally around as their Bible in their professional academic tenure.

Math consequences followed from these inconsistencies in the new Quantum theory and Relativity. The modern physicist let go of any attempt to be intelligible to the general public. Only specialists who knew the system could understand the new claptrap and flimflam theories. It was ultimately the thermodynamics model. They had their end results (20 years of spectroscope data) and the timing was right for revolutionary new theory (the new 20th century) so they just winged it.

Newtonian equations were made sacred and the physical world would just have to twist into whatever shape needed to match the experimental data to fundamental dogma. In some cases it worked OK. The theory of electron orbits and photon emissions works for physical chemistry. Later observations find that at the subatomic level things get totally confused, but that is just an open field to wild speculation and imaginative leaps.

Math consequences to the basics of time and space, gravity and light would not be so pleasant. Mechanical clock time is all experimental modern physics ever used. Turns out at the exact detail level, it can’t be generalized. Atomic clocks must be reset often; they can not be synchronized since they do not measure anything real.

The speed of light remains a simple constant. Math consequences arise from failing to see this as a resolution limit not a physical fundamental. We use changes in light patterns to measure things. The smallest change instruments can notice is what we call the speed of light. It isn’t actually a velocity, rather a limitation of observation.

Light itself remains its own fundamental entity. Physics tries to describe it with old equations developed from trigonometry of relationships within a circle or the motion of a projectile. Neither set of equations exactly fits the actual nature of light. Modern physics developed the wave-particle duality rather than admit they needed new basic observation and theory.

Positions in the heavens are measured by observation of starlight in a tradition developed from the published best-seller by Ptolemy. These observations are approximate and limited by the assumption of a bedrock stable terra firma or unmoving Earth. Time is assumed to be mechanical clock time based upon the latest machinery available.

As observations didn’t exactly fit together, Einstein’s Relativity Theory dumped time and space to imagine a physical space-time notion that wasn’t fixed like Euclidean geometry. It could be bent to allow the observed data to still fit into Newton’s equations. Everything is relative except for Newton’s equations and the speed of light.

Math consequences of Einstein’s relativity contain the realization that measurements made by changing light patterns must be limited to the speed of light and adjusted when the measured speed approaches the speed of light. The expansion of mass and the changes in distance and time are all just corrections to the basic equations to take into account the limits of light based observations.

Admitting fully these limitations of using light patterns as measurement would open the door to realizing the old paradigms are obsolete and new fundamental understanding is needed. However, no one has published the new best seller that lies out the final conclusions and sets up the new model and its instruments to be used in measurement.

Math consequences start with the flight from reality of using models that are filled with logical inconsistencies and the hints of fundamental flaws and anomalies. Being a modern physicist means being a properly trained member of the clique of academic tenured professors. This is what Galileo originally fought against. Now it is back defending the same blind status quo as ever.

The combination of fossil fuel thermodynamics with reality blind modern physics has added real world danger as another of the math consequences of the limits build into current models used to avoid fundamental change. Environmental pollution, global warming, educational failure and social disruption are all simple, obvious, explainable results of the consequences of science paradigms run amok.

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