Humanity’s Magic Number as 1.5?

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 24 Aug 2020

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service

Dimensionless Constant Governing Civilization and Its Potential Collapse

Introduction

24 Aug 2020 – Never in the history of humankind has a number been so widely publicized in so many forms. As a distance it is now promoted as the key to prevention of the spread of infection in what has been declared a major challenge to global civilization as previously known. As a temperature, constraining its increase is the primary target for climate change strategies  — with the failure to achieve it associated with an expectation of sea level rise of 1.5 feet.

Economic growth over long periods, as GDP, is recognized as increasing at that rate — expressed as a percentage. The interest rates offered by central banks hover around that figure, if only currently. The sub-fertility replacement rate of 1.5 is a focus of concern with respect to the aging population of many developed countries. And with the light of the Moon framing so many monthly cycles, it is not surprising to discover that it is 1.5 light seconds away.

Constants — as physical constants — are understood to be fundamental to the organization of nature and of reality as it is perceived (List of physical constants, Wikipedia). Physics carefully distinguishes dimensionless physical constants as pure numbers having no units attached and having a numerical value that is independent of whatever system of units may be used.

The existence of analogous constants fundamental to psychosocial organization has been less evident, although various indications can be noted (Comprehension of Numbers Challenging Global Civilization, 2014). The most widely cited paper in psychology is that of  George Miller (The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: some limits on our capacity for processing information, Psychological Review. 1956). There is therefore a case for exploring whether 1.5 constitutes “a numerical value that is independent of whatever system of units may be used” — as would appear to be implied by its current widespread importance

A first approach to this possibility is a preliminary literature search to clarify the range of domains in which 1.5 has achieved prominence. This is not sufficient in that the occurrence of that number may be variously disguised. The checklist of obvious examples is therefore followed by an indication of domains in which the role of 1.5 may be inferred as a possibility.

Having framed 1.5 as a “magic number“, there is a case for concluding with a speculative focus on one of the most fundamental magic numbers as it features in the simplest magic square as a magic constant — namely 15. This has the potential merit of indicating how the disparate domains governed by 1.5 may be interrelated.

The speculation can be taken further by exploring the extent to which the focus on 1.5 is a consequence of “design-by-committee”. This has unconsciously avoided any effort to highlight a “magic constant” of human-scale significance, namely the golden ratio, of which it is a crude approximation. It would seem that there is a human need for a “language of proportion” to render credible the challenges faced by humanity — especially if these constitute issues of proportion. Numbers as currently used are readily recognized as an inappropriate language for that purpose.

Preliminary checklist of recognition of 1.5

As a preliminary exercise, the following is considered purely indicative — a “work in progress” and an invitation to far more rigorous elaboration. References have not been included. It may be more appropriate to exclude certain instances cited and to consider other possibilities for clustering those included.

Degrees

• Climate (heating):
  • On October 8, 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report on keeping warming below 1.5°C. It was during the Paris climate negotiations that the 1.5C target became a reality. At 1.5 degrees Celsius warming, 6 percent of the insects, 8 percent of the plants and 4 percent of the vertebrates will see their climatically determined geographic range reduced by more than half. 1.5°C emission pathways are defined as those that, given current knowledge of the climate response, provide a one- in-two to two-in-three chance of warming either remaining below 1.5°C or returning to 1.5°C by around 2100 following an overshoot.

Percentages

• Economics:
  • Economic growth: On average, GDP growth per person since 1750 has been 1.5% per year. This means that each generation has been around a third better off than the one before it, on average.
  • Inequality in consumption: In 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption; the poorest fifth just 1.5%
  • A bank will experience a loss based on past experience and historical data if the net interest income generated by a bank is equal to 1.5 percent of its assets.
  • Interest rate: The Official Cash Rate (OCR) has been reduced to 1.5 percent. The real risk-free rate is 1.5 percent.
  • European Union countries are estimated to suffer a long-term damage equivalent to about 1.5 percent of annual economic output if the UK leaves the bloc without a free trade deal
  • Inflation rate: ?
• Biology:
  • Population replacement level: The total fertility rate is 1.5 births per woman in Europe and Canada under conditions in which it is estimated that the requisite replacement level is 2.1 per woman. In most OECD countries, the total fertility rate sits at somewhere between 1.4 and 1.9 children per woman, with rates falling as low as 1.3 in Italy and Spain, and less than 1.0 in Korea.
  • Exome: The human genome consists of 3 billion nucleotides or “letters” of DNA. But only a small percentage — 1.5 percent — of those letters are actually translated into proteins, the functional players in the body. DNA coding: DNA codes for only 1.5 percent protein
  • Masking: It has been claimed that if a sick person and a healthy person are both wearing masks, there’s only a 1.5% chance of transmitting the coronavirus.
  • Diabetes: Type 1.5 diabetes, also called latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), is a condition that shares characteristics of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
• Agriculture:
  • The growth in world demand for agricultural products is expected to fall from an average 2.2 percent a year over the past 30 years to 1.5 percent a year for the next 30. The FAO estimates that growth in global demand for agricultural products will fall from an average of 2.2 percent per year over the past 30 years to 1.5 percent a year for the next 30 years.
  • In the USA, one exceptional moment occurred in the decades after the Civil War, when freed slaves and their descendants accumulated 19 million acres of land. In 1910, 14 percent of all farm owner-operators were Black or African Americans. By 2012, however, they comprised only 1.5 percent.
• Bias (racial, gender, etc) in the USA:
  •  1.5 percent of American Psychological Association members are African American.
  • Racial wealth gap: Eight generations later, the racial wealth gap is both yawning and growing. The typical black family has just 1/10th the wealth of the typical white one. In 1863, black Americans owned one-half of 1 percent of the national wealth. Today it’s just over 1.5 percent for roughly the same percentage of the overall population. Today, using Wolff’s analysis, the median African American family holds a mere 1.5 percent of median white American family wealth.
  • Women manage about 1.5 percent of assets in the financial services industry.
  • It is alleged that 1.5 percent of men are love-shy. About 1.5 percent of American women identify themselves bisexual.
  • It has been found that for women in the top decile of facial attractiveness, their good looks completely negated the 1.5 percent probability boost for female analysts in being voted onto the All-America Research Team

Distance/Height/Length:

• Metres
  • Social distancing of 1.5 meters. Perfumes to keep people 1.5 meters away from you
  • Average human height: 1.5 meters? (Average human height by country, Wikipedia)
  • “Double bed”: 1.5 meters?
  • Selfies: 1.5 meters (5 feet) is the optimal distance for taking portraits that don’t distort your facial features.
  • Personal distance: From 60cm to 1.5 meters (2-5 feet), namely the space is reserved for friends and family – people you know and trust.
• Feet:
  • Sea level rise: The recommended scenarios are 1.5 feet of sea level rise for near-term decisions (2018-2050), 3 feet of sea level rise for medium-term decisions (2050-2080), and 4.5 feet of sea level rise for long-term decisions (2080-2100). At the current rate, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says sea levels there are rising 4.69 millimeters yearly. That’s roughly 1.5 feet in a century.
  • Wave heights as low as 1.5 feet can cause significant damage to structures that are constructed without considering coastal hazards
• Miles / Kilometers:
  • Athletics: Standard 1.5 mile run
• Astronomical distances:
  • Astronomical unit(AU): 1.496 × 10¹¹ meters
  • Distance to the Moon: 1.5 light seconds
  • Distance to Saturn: 1.5 light hours (10.8 AU)
  • “Keep at least 1.5 light years apart to reduce the spread of Vulcan brain worms“.

Areas:

• Wildfires: Enormous ‘megafire’ in Australia engulfs 1.5 million acres
• Farming: 1.5 acres can change an entire community. By increasing our amount of cultivated land to 1.5 acres, we increased our gross sales to $80,000.

Volumes:

• Litres
• Gallons
• Cubic
• Barrels

Weight:/Mass:

• Waste: The average Australian produces approximately 1.5 metric tonnes of waste each year. Each inhabitant of the city of Barcelona generates about 1.5 kilos of waste daily. Each adult produces from 1.3 to 1.5 kilos of urine every day.
• Body Mass Index: Averaging all age groups, BMI tends to increase by 1.5% per decade

Rates:

• Failure rate:
  • Waiting: Each hour of waiting has been independently associated with a 1.5% increased risk of ICU death
  • Space shuttles: That’s a 40% vehicular failure rate (updated) and a flight failure rate of 1.5%. A certain type of rocket has a failure rate of 1.5%
• Maintenance: 1.5% Rule for building maintenance budgets
• Species loss ?

Levels:

• Drugs: In the United States, one drink is considered a 12-ounce beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor. Studies have shown that reaction time increases from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds when blood alcohol content (BAC) reaches 0.08. If it normally takes you 1.5 seconds to react to something, you will be taking 3 seconds to react.
• Sound: Decibels: ?

Time/Cycles:

• Productivity: The average office employee spends 1.5 hours a day (6 weeks per year) looking for things.
• Sleep cycle: A person can get by on 6 or even 4.5 hours of sleep per day without question. The secret is not the amount of sleep, but rather the number itself; a multiple of 1.5 hours will change your life.
• Video games: Chinese children are banned from playing online games for more than 1.5 hours a day
• Chemistry: The half-life of a first-order reaction is 1.5 hours and is independent of the initial concentration of the reactant..

Potentially significant approximations to 1.5 in practice?

To a greater extent than the examples cited above, the question here is what it may be useful to detect in relation to the question raised here — and what it it is appropriate to exclude. Notable exclusions could naturally include temporary rises or current rates — where these have little long term significance. The average height of a human being has risen over the past century from a height which could have approximated far more closely to 1.5 meters.

Oscillation: More intriguing are rates and measures which may oscillate around a figure approximating 1.5 — as with interest rates and rates of inflation — especially when averaged across a range of countries, as in the case of the OECD group.

Averages: Potentially intriguing is the average height of a human being, given the manner in which this is disguised by the manner of presentation of such information (Average human height by country, Wikipedia). The more general point in this respect is that many international statistical tables, notably those relating to human and social development are assiduous in avoiding the provocation which might result from totals and averages.

• Expenditure:
  • Germany will tell NATO in July that it expects to boost military spending to around 1.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2025,
• Pollution:
  • Contamination limit: The new contamination limit unveiled by China is currently 1.5 percent.
• Risks:
  • • In the USA, the lifetime risk of death from drug overdoses is 1.5 percent
• Belief:
  • In the USA, about 1.5 percent of people identify themselves as atheist

Proportions: Recognition of bodily proportions offers some clue to the role of 1.5. Thus:

• women from all cultures repeatedly indicate a preference for a shoulder-to-waist ratio in which the circumference of the body at the shoulders is 1.6 times bigger than that at the waist.This is held to derive from the role of the golden ratio
• the ideal waist size is the product of yet another ratio, which is the height-to-waist ratio, typically 45% of the height. This figure is a derivative of the golden ratio using the reciprocal of the square root of five — with a result of 1.447. The golden ratio for a woman’s body measurements are held to be probably somewhere in the range 1.3 to 1.5.
• the arguments with respect to the role of the golden ratio, and approximations to it, are discussed at some length with respect to appreciation of beauty in the human face (Gary Meisner, The Golden Ratio, Beauty and Design: It’s time to ‘face’ the facts, Golden Number, 9 November  2015)

It is ironic, although a trivial coincidence from most perspectives, that the total of the golden ratio (1.618034) and the golden angle (137.507764) 2.993111 *****  fake news

Unsustainability and Ponzi schemes: There is the possibility that the Ponzi scheme pattern is far more general than is readily assumed. There is extensive literature on Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes, on how to detect them, and when they should be considered illegal (Pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes and multi-level marketing, 2011). The term “Ponzi scheme” is used primarily in the United States, while other English-speaking countries do not distinguish colloquially between this scheme and pyramid schemes.

Less evident, despite such studies, is the extent to which unsustainable development should itself be considered a Ponzi scheme (Shobhana Madhavan and Robert Barrass, Unsustainable Development: could it be a Ponzi Scheme? Sapiens, 4, 2011,1). As noted by a surprising number of commentators, consideration can therefore be usefully given to the global economy as a massive Ponzi scheme in its own right. This then presents the challenge of distinguishing such a scheme from what is so widely promoted as globalization (Global Economy of Truth as a Ponzi Scheme: personal cognitive implication in globalization? 2016). It is not to be imagined that those promoting globalization would clarify how it differs from a pyramid scheme.

Given the dependence on ensuring a continuing flow of investors into the lowest levels of the scheme, in order to sustain the accumulation of wealth at the higher levels, it is intriguing to note that the studies avoid any indication regarding the requisite percentage influx. Does the system remain viable provided the influx ensures a flow in some way related to 1.5? A net profit margin?

As highlighted by the COVID pandemic, how does the viability evaluated by external parties differ from that of participants within a system who depend on it for their livelihood — a family business, a cooperative, or a subsistence farm?

Is 1.5 in some way the magic number ensuring the viability of any pyramid scheme — including food chains in the natural environment, especially in predator-prey systems?

The growth of complexity in a pyramid scheme eventually becomes self-limiting, and leads to a wide spread “general systems collapse”. As shown by Thomas Homer Dixon, the declining energy returns on investment lead to the collapse of civilizations (The Upside of Down: catastrophe, creativity and the renewal of civilization, 2006). Similarly, Jared Diamond shows that cultures self-limit when they exceed the sustainable carrying capacity of their environment, and the consumption of strategic resources creates a deleterious positive feedback loop that leads eventually to social collapse and technological retrogression (Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 2005).

Clarification of the magic square governing human civilization?

As noted above, having framed 1.5 as a “magic number“, there is a case for a speculative focus on one of the most fundamental magic numbers as it features in the simplest magic square as a magic constant — namely 15. This has the potential merit of indicating how the disparate domains governed by 1.5 may be interrelated. Although less common, decimal numbers necessarily also form magic squares and are a feature of early maths education (Decimal Magic Squares)

As indicated in the table, a magic square is one in which the columns, rows and diagonals all total to the same amount — in this case 1.5

Possible indications of a magic square of constant 1.5

Scriptural numerology and 1.5?

There is a case for developing the discipline and focus of mathematical theology — however it is to be distinguished from the more questionable aspects of numerology (Hitoshi Ochiai, Mathematical Theology, Sekaishisosha, 2009; Sarah Voss, Mathematical Theology, UU World, 2003; Gregory Benford, Applied Mathematical Theology, Nature, 440, 2006; J. R. Lucas, Mathematical Theology, Oxford Scholarship Online).

The argument has been presented separately (Mathematical Theology: Future Science of Confidence in Belief — Self-reflexive Global Reframing to Enable Faith-based Governance, 2011).

Relevant verses from various scriptures associated with “1.5”, as highlighted by web searches, might possibly then include, for example:

• John 1:5: And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
• Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
• James 1:5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
• Psalm 1:5: Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

Radical possibility of 1.5 resulting from golden ratio design by committee

Compromise choice by committee? As has become only too apparent in the case of the 1.5 metre separation promoted in response to the coronavirus pandemic, there is no evidence for this particular choice. The number could have been larger or smaller — but to an undefined proportion. This presumably applies to the 1.5 degrees promoted as a strategic challenge with respect to global warming. Does this conclusion apply to a significant proportion of the other instances of reference to 1.5, as noted above?

In such cases could it be concluded that the world has been faced with a form of “design by committee” especially focused on a memorable number which is neither one nor two? The bodies responsible for such choices could indeed be named — if only in opting for a compromise in a policy context faced with advice from experts. Would this also apply in the case of decisions regarding interest rates which are so vital to a healthy economy?

Design-by-committee is a real phenomenon, especially in government projects where a committee of elected representatives establish and control budget decisions, notably as clarified in a survey of engineering efforts that have been heavily influenced by it (Systems Architecting and the Political Process, University of Southern California). The problematic process has been articulated in many references with fruitful detail with respect to:

• software design (William Craig, How to Navigate Design by Committee, WebFX, 6 February 2020; Design by Committee, Source Making).
• business start-ups (Simon McCade, How to avoid ‘design by committee’ and why you should at all costs, Medium, 29 August 2018)
• product design (Heather McCloskey, 10 Smart Ways to Avoid the Consequences of Design by Committee, ProductPlan)

Although no reference is made to “1.5” as such, a related “design by committee” argument has been made with respect to the corporate response to the COVID pandemic (Gabriel Keane, All Corporate COVID Commercials Are Exactly the Same, Down to the Royalty-Free Piano Music, National File, 20 May 2020).

Golden ratio: The curious possibility, which would typically be neglected by a committee, is the alternative represented by a number like 1.6180339887… It is so close to 1.5 but is clearly unmemorable, if not “irrational” in popular discourse. In a committee context, this would naturally be far better “rounded” to 1.5, as is standard practice in so many accounting contexts and with  the use of spreadsheet software. Any effort to communicate 1.6180339887… to the media would have been recognized as laughable.

However, rather than being “unmemorable”, 1.6180339887… is in fact the golden ratio, otherwise held to be fundamental to beauty as perceived by humans and as variously celebrated in the proportions of nature. By extension it could be recognized as the essence of health — as might be the case with respect to health of society.

The golden ratio is also apparent in angular measure as the golden angle of 137.50776405… degrees. There is an ironic absurdity to the “numerological addition” of the two numbers — a trivial coincidence from most perspectives. The total of the golden ratio (1.618034) and the golden angle (expressed as 1.37507764)  is 2.993111. An “average, would then give 1.5, almost precisely. Is the focus on 1.5 equally absurd in the current global context?

Proportions: In the quest for meaningful proportions in a society riven by inequalities and disproportion, the irony is also the greater in that 1.6180339887… is also known as the “golden mean“.

The golden ratio is appreciated as a proportion — not as a number which is an obvious challenge to memory and communication. It is appreciated as a proportion expressed otherwise, most notably in architecture and design. Is there a need to think otherwise with respect to the strategic challenges to which committees have responded with “1.5”?

The golden ratio is especially appreciated in the proportions of the human body — however numbers are attributed to them, even 1.5 Thus:

• women from all cultures repeatedly indicate a preference for a shoulder-to-waist ratio in which the circumference of the body at the shoulders is 1.6 times bigger than that at the waist.This is held to derive from the role of the golden ratio
• the ideal waist size is the product of yet another ratio, which is the height-to-waist ratio, typically 45% of the height. This figure is a derivative of the golden ratio using the reciprocal of the square root of five — with a result of 1.447. The golden ratio for a woman’s body measurements are held to be probably somewhere in the range 1.3 to 1.5.
• the arguments with respect to the role of the golden ratio, and approximations to it, are discussed at some length with respect to appreciation of beauty in the human face (Gary Meisner, The Golden Ratio, Beauty and Design: It’s time to ‘face’ the facts, Golden Number, 9 November 2015)

The current emphasis for social distancing on “1.5 metres” offers another twist to the argument, given the purported equivalent of “6 feet” as promoted in English-speaking countries such as the USA — although “6 feet” is in fact 1.8288 metres. The origin of the foot as a unit of measurement is a reflection of human-scale measurement which has been completely lost in the international definition of a metre. Ironically the arithmetic mean between 1.5 and 1.8288 is 1.6644, notably closer than either to the golden mean of 1.61803.

Golden ratio as an alternative to 1.5? How would the engagement with global challenges be transformed if the golden ratio were to be used as humanity’s magic number?

• whatever the justification for social distancing, how much more elegant would be its communication, acceptability and uptake if it were framed by the golden ratio?
• would the acceptability of the challenge of global warming, and its effect on the environment, be understood quite otherwise if it were framed by that ratio?
• how might economics be transformed if interest rates were presented in proportions governed by the golden ratio, rather than by the inhuman sterility of accounting measures?

Geometric magic squares: A provocative mnemonic use is made of the simplest magic square above to suggest further insight into 1.5 as a magic constant. However any suggestion that such a magic square should be adapted following substitution of the golden ratio reframes the challenge completely — and appropriately so.

It would seem that there is a need for a “language of proportion” which is required to render credible the challenges faced by humanity — especially if these constitute issues of proportion. Numbers as currently used are readily recognized as an inappropriate language for that purpose. How is “proportional thinking” to be developed, as suggested by the Reanaissance thinking and by the preoccupation of early education in mathematics (Vasco Zara, Music, Architecture, Proportion and the Renaissance Way of Thinking. European Review, 2020; Annette Hilton, et al, Using photographic images to enhance conceptual development in situations of proportion, APMC, 20, 2015, 1)?

As succinctly stated with respect to the Ebola pandemic of the past by Simon Jenkins: We have lost control of the language of proportion. The result is an outbreak of crying-wolf syndrome (Downing Street’s Ebola panic is a classic case of the politics of fear, The Guardian, 17 October 2014)

It so happens that the concept of a magic square as studied over millennia has been fruitfully reframed in the recent past into a geometric analogue by Lee Sallows (Geometric Magic Squares, Mathematical Intelligencer, 33, 2011, 4; Geometric Magic Squares: a challenging new twist using colored shapes instead of numbers, 2013). They offer a new way of perceiving the integration which magic squares have traditionally implied (Alex Bellos, Magic squares are given a whole new dimension, The Observer, 3 April 2011).

Such geometric magic squares are now recognized as a generalization of their traditional numeric forms which are in effect specific instances of the new geometric formulation. A geomagic square is a square array of geometrical shapes in which those shapes appearing in each row, column, or diagonal can be fitted together to create an identical shape — the target shape. Shapes of any dimension are possible. The richer structure of geomagic squares is reflected in the existence of specimens showing a far greater degree of ‘magic’ than is possible with numerical types.

Indication of development beyond numerical magic squares to geometric magic squares
Geomagic square	Geomagic cube
Lee Sallows / CC BY-SA	Lee Sallows / CC BY-SA

The image on the right is itself indicative of a new way of thinking about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as an extension of an earlier argument in relation to the Rubik Cube (Interplay of Sustainable Development Goals through Rubik Cube Variations Engaging otherwise with what people find meaningful, 2017).

Arguably in seeking a comprehensible golden ratio refinement for 1.5, use could be made of its expression in the form most readily recognized, namely the golden rectangle, as it might apply to a geometric magic square. In 3D, this is most obviously related to polyhedra.

Golden ratio and geometric magic squares: The argument can however be developed further in the light of the presentation by James Solberg ((Phi)ve is a Magic Number, 2018; (Phi)ve is Magic, YouTube, 2018). He specifically addresses the correspondence between the number 5 at the centre of a conventional magic square and that of the golden ratio in the form of 1.6180. He demostrates that the two numbers are linked in many surprising ways as clarified by geometric magic squares (James J. Solberg, Easy Magic Square Methods and Tricks, 2019). With respect to the argument here, it is also appropriate to note Solberg’s professional responsibility with respect to operations research (Modeling Random Processes for Engineers and Managers 2008).

There is every possibility that development of applications in this regard could include insights from magic circles — and the possibility of the requisite adaptation of conventional accounting, as separately argued (Spherical Accounting: using geometry to embody developmental integrity, 2004). Magic circles have for example been adapted to spherical form — with the possibility that these may be especially relevant to global governance.

References

Jared Diamond. Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed. Viking Press, 2005

Thomas Homer Dixon:

• The Upside of Down: catastrophe, creativity and the renewal of civilization. Knopf, 2006
• The Ingenuity Gap. Knopf, 2000

Shobhana Madhavan and Robert Barrass. Unsustainable Development: could it be a Ponzi Scheme? Sapiens, 4, 2011, 1 [text]

Gary Meisner. The Golden Ratio, Beauty and Design: it’s time to ‘face’ the facts. Golden Number, 9 November 2015 [text]

Lee Sallows. Geometric Magic Squares: a challenging new twist using colored shapes instead of numbers. Dover Publications, 2013

James J. Solberg:

• Easy Magic Square Methods and Tricks. Sun Mountain Publications, 2019
• Magic Square Methods and Tricks. Sun Mountain Publications, 2016
• Modeling Random Processes for Engineers and Managers. Wiley, 2008

Anthony Judge is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and mainly known for his career at the Union of International Associations (UIA), where he has been Director of Communications and Research, as well as Assistant Secretary-General. He was responsible at the UIA for the development of interlinked databases and for publications based on those databases, mainly the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, the Yearbook of International Organizations, and the International Congress Calendar. Judge has also personally authored a collection of over 1,600 documents of relevance to governance and strategy-making. All these papers are freely available on his personal website Laetus in Praesens. Now retired from the UIA, he is continuing his research within the context of an initiative called Union of Imaginable Associations. Judge is an Australian born in Egypt, a thinker, an author, and lives in Brussels. His TMS articles may be accessed HERE. (Wikipedia)

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