Calendar

The Mousetrap and the Holobiont. Ugo Bardi teaches Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence.This will be a rambling discussion of multiple themes maybe not so well correlated with each other. We start from the dynamic modeling of a system of 50 mousetraps designed to simulate a nuclear explosion, then we move to using the model to simulate the overexploitation of natural resources.

Gail Tverberg - Oct. 30/Nov. 3 - Models that Explain the Predicament the World Economy Is Facing

Gail Tverberg has an MS in mathematics and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. While working in the insurance industry, it became apparent to Ms. Tverberg that the long-term models prepared by actuaries were not really right: An economy could not expect to grow at the same rate indefinitely, in a finite world. In 2005, she started reading about the oil limits problem and started writing articles on the subject in 2006. In March 2007, she decided to leave the insurance industry and investigate the issue of how the limits to a finite world could be expect to play out, on close to a full-time basis. She started her own blog, OurFiniteWorld.com, at that time. For a time, while the site was still active, she became an author and editor at TheOilDrum.com, writing under the name “Gail the Actuary.” Ms. Tverberg gradually developed and expanded her own theories, as many different energy groups invited her to give talks, and as commenters on her website brought new ideas to her attention. She has written several academic papers and has taught a short course on Energy Economics at Petroleum University in Beijing. Most of her recent writing can be found at OurFiniteWorld.com.