PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am gratefully indebted to the work of various scientists in Western
Europe and the United States during the last 150 years. These people
have shared a passion for the same subject that now fascinates me, and
their contributions to this work are cited in the Notes and Sources.
Among them, Cesare Marchetti requires special mention. He has contributed
enormously to making the formulation of natural growth a
general vehicle for understanding society. I draw extensively on his
ideas, ranging from the concept of invariants (Chapter One) to the productivity
of Mozart (Chapter Four) and the evolution of nuclear energy
(Chapter Seven). I present many of his results, and I know that he has
inspired many of the results obtained by others. He has masterminded
the explanation of the intricate interdependence of primary-energy systems
and transport infrastructures discussed in Chapter Nine. The
culminating Chapter Eleven is largely based on two of his works, “Energy
Systems” and “On Society and Nuclear Energy.” Thus, this book
could not have come into existence had it not been for the work of Cesare
Marchetti and of his collaborators, Nebojsa Nakicenovic and
Arnulf Grubler, at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
in Laxenburg, Austria. I am grateful to them for keeping me abreast
of their latest work and for all the fruitful discussions we have had together.
Of great importance has been the contribution of my collaborator,
Alain Debecker. His personal and professional support reflect on many
aspects of this book. I also want to thank another colleague, Phil
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