Tag Archives: second law

Measuring the Complexity of Bitcoin

November 29, 2013 By in Blog, Economic Theory Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

I looked at the distribution of transactions of 1 hour of the block chain (269609 to 269618). I parsed the blockchain into two sets of transactions: originating and receiving addresses. I examined both sets independently and together, attempting to fit the three different trials to Gamma distributions. The receiving addresses proved to have the easiest to interpret set of data, and did not follow a Gamma distribution. Instead, the receiving transactions followed a Log-Normal distribution. Figure 1 shows the results of the data and the resulting fit. The data in figure 1 was parsed into blocks that are 2dB wide (every decade of transactions size is 5 bins, the first bin is 10^{-6}BTC, 1BTC is the 30th bin)

Figure 1, Receiving address distribution of bitcoin transactions blocks 269609 to 269618 with Log-Normal fit

Figure 1, Receiving address distribution of bitcoin transactions blocks 269609 to 269618 with Log-Normal fit

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The Chilling Effect of Inflation

November 7, 2013 By in Blog Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

There has been some discussion in the news about inflation. Japan is actively pursuing inflationary policy with the Yen. The Federal Reserve is not backing off of its Quantitative Easing, taper-off. Meanwhile, India is is watching their currency collapse. And the ECB just announced a surprise lowering of their interest rates. One of the hallmarks of modern economic theory is the stimulatory nature of increasing consumption now. This is financed through two mechanisms, debt and increasing the monetary base. The root of the dual mandate of the Federal Reserve is that inflation as shown by the Phillips Curve causes higher employment. This is dangerous policy. Here is the math explaining why. Continue reading →

Liberty as a Consequence of Human Action

October 29, 2013 By in Blog, Economic Theory, Policy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I came to being a libertarian because of the math. I started with the idea that if we start with microeconomics, game theory, and then formally aggregate a group of individuals we can come to macro economics. I did this by mirroring Gibbs approach to deriving statistical mechanics. Translated into econo-jargon, a society is just a bunch of people added together. Thus statistical economics was born. When I explored the consequences of this framework in environmental ethics, I saw I had no choice other than to accept libertarian principles. There is more that needs to be done, and so here we go. Continue reading →

Thermodynamic Wind Energy Analysis: Bonneville Power Administration

September 6, 2013 By in Data Analysis, Energy, Policy, Renewables Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

A thermodynamic paper on a renewable energy source on an economics blog? Seriously?  Yes seriously.

The paper is my first attempt at applying the principles of statistical economics into other fields. I model the consumption and production of various sources of electricity.  Electricity is a pure human creation for human use and is the defining characteristic of modern life.  So yes, it is all connected.

The results shocked me when I saw them. The power of the method is readily apparent and starts to lay bare our understanding or lack thereof of energy production and consumption.

Thermodynamic Wind Energy Analysis: Bonneville Power Administration

I look forward to your comments.

The Second Law: The limited potential of wind energy

March 23, 2013 By in Blog, Data Analysis, Energy, Renewables Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Cal Abel
23 March 2013

After watching An Inconvenient Truth and becoming aware of the push for renewable energy, I questioned the efficacy of renewable energy sources meeting global energy needs. I thought thermodynamics held the key in being able to understand this. Thus my quest began in January 2007. Today, I can report meaningful progress on this subject.

To build the appropriate model, I started with some publicly available fine grain data from the Bonneville Power Administration. I used data from January 1, 2007 00:00 to February 28, 2011 12:05 PST. The data is segregated into 5 minute blocks of the average power within that 5 minute period. Here is the excel file of the BPA wind power/capacity and grid load. You can verify this data by comparing the previous links. The date format is from Mathematica and is in “Absolute Time” : each full integer is 1 second. As a reference, 3376598400 is January 1, 2007 00:00:00 PST. The data is posted here in a parsed format only for your convenience and to aid in your analysis as the entirety of the modeling can readily be done in Excel if so desired. Continue reading →