Long Waves, Short Memories
The wave-form is beautiful. The sound of the ocean beating against the sand is evidence that order exists in nature.
When you consider the physics of a wave-form, it becomes even more beautiful. It is matter displaying the tendency to invert: the energy that makes the wave rise is the same energy that makes it fall.
When you consider the mathematical properties of the wave-form, it becomes more fascinating still. Fifteen hundred years ago, an Indian mathematician discovered that if you plot every possible ratio between two sides of a triangle it produces a wave-like pattern. Medieval scholars called it a ‘sine’. Today we call the smooth, repetitive waves found in nature sine waves. An electrical current moves in the form of a sine wave; so does sound; so does light.
And there are waves within waves. To a surfer, waves seem to come in sets, growing in size, so that the sixth or seventh is the big one that you want to catch. In fact, this is just the result of a longer, flatter wave moving ‘through’ the short ones.
This relationship – of long waves to short ones – is a source of order in acoustics. For musicians the harmonics created by short waves within longer waves are what gives each instrument its particular sound; music is in tune when long and short waves are in strict mathematical proportion.
Waves are ubiquitous in nature. In fact, at the subatomic level, the wavelike movement of a particle is the only way we can know it exists. But waves also exist within big, complex and unnatural systems – such as markets. For those who analyse stock markets, the wave-form has become like a religious icon: they use tools to filter out the ‘noise’ of daily fluctuations to produce a predictive curve. ‘Peaks’ and ‘troughs’ have become everyday economic terms.
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