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"I know what you'll do next summer," by John Casti. New Scientist, 31 August 2002, pages 29-32.
This article describes the theory of "Elliott waves," which were first proposed by Ralph N. Elliott, an accountant who worked during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Elliott argued that the stock market follows a clear pattern of up and down cycles. The pattern is based on the Fibonacci numbers, an infinite sequence of numbers in which each successive number is the sum of the previous two: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,... The Fibonacci numbers are ubiquitous in nature, describing for example the spiral patterns on seashells. Elliott waves were used by financial guru Robert Prechter to predict the "super bull market" of the 1990s; he made the prediction in 1982, when the U.S. economy was in recession. The theory of Elliott waves is based on the notion that human behavior follows clear rhythmical patterns and that human behavior that dictates things like stock values. This leads to the conclusion that "social mood actually shapes events," rather than the other way round.
--- Allyn Jackson
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