Beschreibung
FIRST EDITION, full volume inclusive of many important papers: one of only two declassified papers written by the physicist Hugh Everett during his long tenure "analyzing the cost-benefits of global and limited nuclear warfare," for the top secret Weapons Systems Evaluation Group [WESG], a sort of Pentagon think tank which generated analysis for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Aftergood, Secrecy 2010 quoting Peter Byrne). Also included in this volume are Osborne's first two papers on Brownian motion in the stock market; Dantzig's application of linear programming to the â??traveling-salesman problem; and Malcolm on a pioneering technique for project planning and monitoring commonly called PERT. EVERETT: After Hugh Everett's "now celebrated theory of multiple universes [was published and] met scorn, [he] abandoned the world of academic physics [and] turned to top secret military research" (Byrne, Scientific American, 2008). All save for two of his papers have been classified, this being one of the two. Pugh later characterized their work specifically as having "rationalizing and promoted military strategies that were operative for decades" (ibid). The purpose of the paper offered here was "to provide a simple way of evaluating the consequences of radioactive fallout from a large nuclear-weapon campaign without resorting to detailed map studies. A method of optimally distributing weapons among large areas in order to maximize radiation casualties is deduced on the basis of the formulas, and curves are exhibited expressing the casualties produced as a function of total yield delivered. The achievement of optimized attacks does not require a delivery accuracy with probable error less than about a hundred miles. In addition, the formulas are applied to a number of other targeting doctrines, and the resulting curves of casualties versus total delivered yield are presented " (Everett, 226). OSBORNE: 1st publication of Brownian motion in the stock market. Osborne was the first to study the technical analysis scientifically, the first to demonstrate the substantial contribution physics could make to finance, and the first to publish [in the two papers included here]. He elucidated the periodic structure in the Brownian motion of stock prices as well as the financial analogs of physical Brownian motion as illustrated by earnings. In the first of the two papers, Osborne presents his hypothesis that price follows a geometric Brownian motion - "that common-stock prices, and the value of money can be regarded as an ensemble of decisions in statistical equilibrium, with properties quite analogous to an ensemble of particles in statistical mechanics" (Osborne 145). In the second paper, Osborne demonstrates that he was jointly responsible for the earliest literature identifying the fat tails and that price deviation is proportional to the square root of time. MALCOLM: 1st edition of a statistical mathematics tool, Malcolm's pioneering technique for project planning and monitoring commonly called PERT. The paper "describes the development and application of a technique for measuring and controlling development progress" for the Navy's Polaris Fleet Ballistic Missile program" (Malcolm, et al., 1959, p. 646). DANTZIG: Dantzig "was one of the three founders of linear programming, a mathematical method used for the optimum allocation of scarce resources among competing activities. [He] discovered that many such allocation problems could be formulated as linear computer programs" (Origins of Cyberspace, 92). Dantzig's work in this paper on the famed "traveling-salesman problem" was an important early application of linear programming. ALSO INCLUDED: Two papers dealing with the problem of traffic, one by Greenberg, one by Herman & Montroll. CONDITION & DETAILS: Complete volume. 8vo. (9 x 6 inches). Tightly and very solidly bound in blue and grey, silver lettered at the spine. Pristine inside and out. Fine condition.
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