A J Tchijevsky’s excitement cycles reopen the debate of Time.
The success in the new age is a lot different from what we experienced 11 years back. The shy public which needed market research surveys to bring out feedback is keener to offer comments. There were 30 odd comments on an Oil forecast, 398 comments on a dirty sports tackle on the yahoo sports blog, and 425 comments on the 13-year-old Everest climber. Are we in "excited" times? Or do you think we as a society are a bit less excited than what we were a few years back? Do these times polarize us as a society? Do we become indifferent? Is there some way we can quantify excitement? Can this quantification help us forecast? Can it tell us before our odds of success or failure? Can it tell us how to plan our investments and life? Can it tell us what movies to make? What products and businesses to launch? Does this excitement ever fall? Simply we are asking ourselves is excitement cyclical? And if it is cyclical, is cyclicality a science? But before we come to the science part, how time cycles are measurable, and how it can revolutionize our understanding of the world around us, let’s have a closer look at excitement.
In December 1926, at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, Professor A J Tchijevsky’s (researcher at Astronomical Observatory, Institute of Biological Physics, Archeological Institute, Moscow) paper was presented, which elaborated the index of Mass human excitability, 500 B.C. – A.D. 1922. This index showed a consistent pattern of 9 waves of excitability per century over the entire span of 2422 years. The index was compiled from detailed statistical studies in the histories of 72 countries and nations of the world.
Tchijevsky found not only that this index was characterized by the 11.1-year cycles, but that the crests of these cycles tended to correlate with crests of sunspot cycles. “In the paper published in the Cycles magazine of Foundation of Cycles 1968 issue professor quotes” As soon as the sunspot activities approach its maximum, the number of important mass historical events, taken as a whole, increases, approaching its maximum during the sunspot maximum and decreases to its minimum during the periods of the sunspot minimum. Each cycle is divided into four periods. Minimum of excitability (3 years), Growth of excitability (2 years), the maximum of excitability (3 years), the decline of excitability (3 years).
Over nearly a hundred years since the research was published, a few things have changed. In the extreme point of the cycle’s course, the tension of the all human activity falls to the minimum, giving way to creativity and a general decrease of military or political enthusiasm, by peace and peaceful creative work and disintegration of masses. The last sunspot cycle started in 1998, peaked in 2000, and bottomed in 2009. The society emerges out of excitability lows.
Now, this is where the observations begin. The human excitability is at an 11 year low and we are in a few years of growth and prosperity. This might sound surprising and contrary to popular belief that we are in for a double-dip recession. Excitability cycles tell us that from the lows in 2010, a multiyear equity bull should emerge. But there are strange coincidences here? Excitability cycles are not only in sync with sunspot cycles but also with a decade long Clement Juglar cycles.
The scientists say, don’t show me cycles and pattern coincidences everywhere. Show me the proof. Even professor Tchijevsky’s work did not get so much popularity as few could explain why the excitability index was leading the sunspot cycles by an average of 12 months. At some stage of thinking, cyclists wondered that there was a force that affects both human beings and sunspots simultaneously. Proving why periodicity happened takes time cycle analysis to a scientific level.
Scientific rationalism against Time can be sticky ground. Especially because there is a lot more than empirical proof out there which suggests that time could be mathematical and ordered, the reason for the coincidences, sunspots, growth, etc. The first proof is History itself. Though the society uses the cliché that ‘history repeats’, it never asks, is repetitive history, periodicity, recurrence in time pointing to a structure in time? Other clichés like ‘space and time have intrigued a generation of scientists. History was always considered knowledge, not science. Karl Lamprecht, German Historian showcased the order, history’s practical purpose was always considered doubtful. How naive of us!
Time's potential mathematical structure could drive nature, society and its cycles. Periodicity and recurrence may happen in society and stock markets because of this order. Time is why everything natural is cyclical, even human excitement. Whether we disbelieve in the Sun and excitement connection and believe that other conjured causalities work better, our behavior as a society is predictable. Solar cycle causality worked in contrast to Soviet reasoning of the early 20th century and saw Professor Tchijevsky incarcerated for eight years. How much of the solar causality will work now remains to be seen.