Research du Jour: Gold Prices and Nuclear Physics

By Paul Kedrosky · December 8, 2010 · ·

Possibly the strangest research finding I have seen in some time: the price of gold compared to the proportion of papers in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science mentioning “monte carlo” or “simulation”. It’s riveting in a WTF? sort of way. As the authors concede, there isn’t really any relationship, but it looks so darn pretty.

gold-monte-carlo.png

Source: Pia MG, Basaglia T, Bell ZW, Dressendorfer PV. The Butterfly Effect: Correlations Between Modeling in Nuclear-Particle Physics and Socioeconomic Factors. 2010:8. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1718.

Related posts:

  1. Future of Nuclear Power
  2. North Korea’s Nuclear Test
  3. Richard Rhodes on Nuclear Arsenals
  4. Research Roundup: Bubbles, Surfing, BMI, Secretaries, Natural Resources, etc.
  5. Readings: Gold, China, Flu, Africa, Uni-tasking, etc.