The Heavens Are Falling: The Scientific Prediction of Catastrophes in Our Time

This book grew out of sense of mixed vexation and concern that has been building up inside me for a long time.
As a computer scientist I have been engaged for over thirty- five years in the modeling and computer simulation of systems and phenomena of all kinds. Over the years, I have worked on, taught about, and written about computer techniques to predict the behavior of air pollutants, space and aircraft, electric power systems, computer networks, the human heart, and managerial structures, among others. Many of the projects with which I was associated were successful in providing decision makers, man- agers, and engineers with useful information. Others turned out to be too vague in their formulation or too difficult or too expen- sive computationally, but all helped to teach me what can and cannot be expected from computer models. Moreover, I learned what we can now confidently predict and what we can hope to predict in the future
I like bookstores and, whenever I get the chance, I enjoy thumbing through new books dealing with the future-predic- tions of what is to come and warnings of what might come. In most of my favorite bookstores, I have noticed several racks of books dealing with prophecies-books by "new thought" vision- aries, by astrologers, and by practitioners of the occult. Many of these forecast dire events, such as major earthquakes, plagues, invasions from outer space, collisions with comets, and, not infre- quently, the end of the world. I have paid very little attention to these.