WHAT WE CANNOT PREDICT - An EDGE Special Event

Edge: WHAT WE CANNOT PREDICT - An EDGE Special Event: "About a year ago, on Wednesday April 14th, I was on the way to London from JFK, when the pilot announced a slight delay into Heathrow in order to avoid the ash cloud coming out of the Icelandic volcano eruption. This was the first time I paid any attention to the subject. But once in London that is the only subject anybody talked about for a week.

'Something is going on here that requires serious thinking,' I wrote on these pages. 'We've had earthquakes before, and we've had plane stoppages, but nothing like the continuing effects of the ash cloud.' The result was an Edge Special event on 'The Ash Cloud'. I asked the following question:

'What do the psychologists have to say about the way the decision-makers have acted? What have the behavioral economists learned from this? I am interested in hearing from the earth and atmospheric scientists, the aeronautical engineers, the physicists. What can science bring to the table?'

It's already clear that the earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan is the latest tragic example of our inability to predict when it matters most."