PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

2. NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK
WESTERN HEMISPHERE EXPLORATIONS
Cumulativer number
of explorations
50
40
30
20
10
0
1%
-10
-20
1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750
FIGURE 2.2 An S-curve was fitted to the 45 explorations of the Western Hemisphere
following and including Columbus’s voyage. The nominal beginning of
such a curve—the 1% level—points at 1340 and implies that there may have
been 15 explorations unaccounted for prior to Columbus.
The conclusion is that there must have been about fifteen attempts
before Columbus that failed while trying to explore the west, the first
one dating back to around 1340. This kind of backcasting—if somewhat
daring—is not different than the usual forecasting approach. We are
dealing with a pattern similar to that of the growing vocabulary of an
infant if we only look at the data pattern upside down and let time run
backwards. The uncertainties on the number fifteen can be estimated
(see Appendix B) to be plus or minus three with 90 percent confidence
level.
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