LESSON TEN: Going Around in Ellipses

GET A DATE: Check out a timeline of U.S. business cycle fluctuations from the 1850s to present provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Of course, the methodology of timing a recession is always controversial. President Harry Truman offered the non-mathematical method: “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.” A candidate for President in 1980, Ronald Regan expanded the definition to include “recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.” Stick with the hard data. 

null

Business Cycle Expansion and contraction dates for the United States Economy

---

GIVE YOURSELF A B: Lifeforce (1985) screams B movie. Come to think of it, there are a lot of screams as a race of vampires from space arrive in the tail of Halley’s Comet. Or you can try Night of the Comet (1984) to see what two Valley Girls do after one wipes out most of life on earth. Of course, if you are looking for disaster movies about objects from space you can try more recent fare like 1998’s dueling disaster flicks, Deep Impact or Armageddon. Given these choices, you may want to curl up with a good book. Read on! 

Lifeforce (1985)

Directed by Tobe Hooper. With Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay. A race of space vampires arrive in London and infect the populace.

Deep Impact (1998)

Directed by Mimi Leder. With Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman. Unless a comet can be destroyed before colliding with Earth, only those allowed into shelters will survive. Which people will survive?

Night of the Comet (1984)

Directed by Thom Eberhardt. With Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Robert Beltran, Sharon Farrell. A comet wipes out most of life on Earth, leaving two Valley Girls fighting against cannibal zombies and a sinister group of scientists.

Armageddon (1998)

Directed by Michael Bay. With Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler. After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas is going to impact Earth in less than a month, N.A.S.A. recruits a misfit team of deep core drillers to save the planet.

---

BECOME MANIC, THEN PANIC: Another book where merely reading it isn’t enough, you must own Charles Kindelberger and Robert Aliber’s study of Manias, Panics and Crashes (2005). Trace the history of economic growth, irrational exuberance and credit expansion leading to inevitable con- traction and sometimes outright anxiety and alarm. This book neatly summarizes the business cycle and all the fun and horror it can produce when accompanied by untimely monetary policy. 

Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Seventh Edition

The first edition of Charles Kindleberger's brilliant, panoramic history, published in 1978, summarized the pattern of market developments and the five stages in the evolution of a financial crisis. Robert Z. Aliber probes the sequence of four waves of crises that have involved more than forty co...

---

RAISE A TOAST: Overcome the gravitational pull keeping your beer on the table and raise a glass at Sir Edmond Halley’s Restaurant and Freehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. There you can belt out a drinking song to Sir Ed first penned by the Members of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1910:
​
Of all the comets in the sky,
There’s none like Comet Halley.
We see it with the naked eye
And periodically
The first to see it was not he,
But still we call it Halley.
The notion that it would return
Was his originally.

Can’t make it to Charlotte? Belt it out at your own favorite watering hole where it will make no sense whatsoever. Bonus points for posting the evidence on YouTube. 

Sir Edmond Halley's Restaurant & Freehouse - About

null

---

DROP IT LIKE ITS HOT: Using a paper cup, poke a hole in the bottom and fill it with water. When you release your finger, the water streams out of the hole. Now, with a refilled glass, simultaneously release your finger and drop the cup. Water no longer sprays out the hole as the cup and water fall at the same speed toward the floor. Nice work Newton, gravity at work. And no produce was harmed during this experiment.