(from Physics Bulletin, October 1976)
In a recent paper in Nature (1 July 1976, p13) Spencer R Weart of the American Institute of Physics describes the ways in which science has been permeated by business interest. From this side of the Atlantic comes the suggestion that the links between science and business are even stronger, and at a far more fundamental level. All the scientific disci(?) lines can be related in the original natural structure of a business in which energy place the role of money.
Or so says Joan Pick, physicist, ex-writer for “Understanding Science” and management consultant, who has put forward a business model of the universe. The model was initially developed as a means of analyzing the world’s energy accounts, and is based on the notion that all options of energy (or monetary) investment and expenditure can be allocated to just six operating divisions, (1) finance (2) materials and production facilities (3) distribution (4) premises (5) workers (and consumers) and (6) management. The corresponding terms used to describe the world as a business are (1) energy (2) matter (3 environment (4) territory (5) plant (animal) life and (6) mind.
The business model can be related to the conventional concepts in physics and the life sciences in a set of three formal axioms.
Energy exists and fulfill the business functions of finance (that is, exchange, investment and change):
Matter exists and fulfill the business functions of materials and production facilities, consisting of an energy equivalent component, mass, plus an operator, charge:
There exists an absolute framework of reference for the interaction of energy and matter. This consists, in part, of the space-time framework, in which the dimensions of space and time are allocated to two operating divisions, distribution (=f(L,T)), and premises (=f(L)^2). The framework is developed through a set of functions, workers, partly balanced, in life, by a referse(?), set consumers, and maintained by means of reproduction. The framework is directed, organized and planned by a general function, management.
Thus the model contains all the components which, according to Miss Pick, are necessary to construct and operate the universe - energy, mass, charge, space, time units, means of reproduction, balance, direction and pattern of organization, and some sense of objective or purpose.
Despite their current preoccupation with financial exigencies(sp?), and with commercial applications for research, the business concepts may not ring familiar in the Ears of physicists used to thinking of fundamental frame-works in terms of quarks, charm and abstract mathematics. Mis Pick’s business theory is also likely to raise scientific jacklesby the directness of its challenge to special relativity, which is based only on two axioms, when work in set theory indicates that three axioms are an absolute minimum for theoretical systems which discrete objects.
The challenge to the ideas and terms of conventional economics is equally direct fundamental measurements like GDP are set aside and complex computer simulations of economic behavior replaced by the simple six-divisional “business model”, analysed in terms of a single and usually quantifiable, variable, energy.
Miss Pick’s extrapolation of the business model takes the form of a rigorous first principle, analysis of the energy accounts of a business called Earth Enterprise. Her “interim report and structure for the energy economy” is available from the British Library Lending Division at Boston Spa.
The economic remedy she recommends to the “Board of Earth Enterprise” is a fundamental change in the economic direction and values, to a new system called the Energy Economy. This takes the conversation debate on from EF Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful", past the Department of “energy’s Energy Sense is common-sense”, to “energy sense is a business sense”, for it transpires that the adoption of the common business objective of operating on and within the solar energy “income” provides the economic stability and new markets which will enable business to operate profitably, and to conform to the highest standards of social responsibility.
The rules for the conduct of business in the Energy Economy have been drafted in a “business convention of energy accounting”, which differs from other conventions in distinguishing clearly between renewable and nonrenewable energy resources. Briefly, Miss Pick’s version starts with basic physical point that energy is associated with (1) nuclear states (2) electron states, or (3) is in transit as radiation. The equivalent business terms (1) fixed assets (2) reserves, and (3) income or expenditures.
Looked at from a point on the surface of the Earth, solar energy is income. Fossil fuels are one main source of available reserves, the other being the reserves formed as a result of current and recent photosynthesis. The fixed assets which can, theoretically, be stripped, are to be found in fissionable and fusionable elements. The convention can be extended to cover other energy sources - geothermal, wind, waves, tide - but the central issue remains the distinction between income and reserves plus fixed assets.
The rules for good management are still those of ordinary business and are similar to those of ordinary business [are similar to those of ordinary business], and consist broadly speaking, of optimizing the utilization of the income, maintaining adequate short and long-term reserves, and making wise decisions on investment and expenditures. The wisdom guided by the need to keep energy consumption (expenditure plus investment) per capita well within the available per capita income.
This [Micawberish] good sense is in contrast to the view of the Department of Energy, that energy consumption from reserves plus fixed assets can be expected to double by the end of the century, and that the contribution from the solar income with be almost negligible. Hence the passing of Miss Pick’s report through the Department and its advisory committee has not been an easy one.
KP/jmp/JMP
25 October 2016
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