PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

2. NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK
was exhausted by 1972, after which no further expeditions were undertaken.
America’s preoccupation with the Earth’s natural satellite began,
intensified and subsided in a total of eight years, like a grandiose fad.
To a certain extent expeditions to conquer high mountains follow the
same pattern. They begin slowly but soon reach a feverish “gold-rush”
period. But mountain climbing unlike gold-panning, displays an interesting
aftermath. It is something I first noticed with the expeditions to
the Matterhorn, the second highest mountain in Europe after Mont
Blanc (4400 meters compared to 4800 meters). My observation highlights
one of the eventualities to be expected after the completion of an
exploration process.
• • •
Once upon a time in an alpine chalet with skiing conditions
officially declared not practicable, I dug into a pile of old
books stacked away in a corner collecting dust and the smell
of wood smoke. Among them I found a calendar of expeditions
on the Matterhorn, this Swiss alpine shrine that rises like
a huge pyramid presenting three different faces to mountaineers.
It has been explored methodically from all sides. When
the easiest side was successfully climbed, mountaineers turned
to the more unfriendly ones, in order of increasing difficulty.
Each new, more difficult ascent required perseverance before it
was achieved and claimed its share of accidents. Each climb
contributed another data point to an S-curve that started unfolding
before my eyes. The natural-growth pattern of the
learning process broke down, however, before the curve was
completed. As time went on more and more people climbed
the same old paths. Today, hordes of tourists climb the mountain
every day. In contrast to the smooth bends of the early
curve, which described the exploration and learning process,
today’s pattern of the cumulative number of expeditions depicts
a steep straight-line trend reflecting up to a hundred
climbers per day in well-organized groups.
I struggled for a while trying to understand the meaning of
the graph in front of me. The answer came to me with an un-
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