Economics similar to physics, lecturer says

In order to show the connection between math and science, the JMU Honors Program sponsored a Brown-Bag lecture Wednesday afternoon at the Hillcrest House.

Geology and environment professor Lynn S. Fichter spoke on "Just What Is Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand of Commerce?'"

The "invisible hand of commerce" in Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is "a bunch of individuals looking out for their own selfish interests," Fichter said.

"These individuals end up producing an economic system that benefits everybody," Fichter said.

"There is a continuous change of customers — people are born and people die, bridges are built; everything is in flux," Fichter said. "But, there are always business owners who want to make money and customers who want to buy stuff."

Fichter posed two questions to the audience.

"Who organizes this system and who makes it run properly?" he said.

Years ago, economists used physics as a model and believed the key was mathematics and began to emulate physicists, Fichter said.

From the Newtonian and classical physics camp, there was a belief in the world that there are eternal laws, and that one could use a law to predict everything, according to Fichter. The goal of Newtonian physicists was absolute knowledge and complete control of the system, he said.

Their motto was a quote by Albert Einstein: "Supreme purity, clarity, certainty."

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Santa Fe Institute was created so scientists could study complex systems, according to Fichter. The Santa Fe Institute held a conference that brought together physicists and economists, with mathematics as the common bond between them.

In this manner, physicists began to see how similar economics was to science and were astounded at the way economists used the same math in a different way, Fichter said.

According to Fichter, there was a dichotomy between that assumption and the perception that economies don't appear to have any sort of control behind them.

"Smith's basic insight was that there was an invisible hand controlling the economy," Fichter said.

Fichter also said that with everyone following local commerce rules, such as a customer paying to get a product, this type of global behavior will lead to organizing itself.

"I enjoy [brown-bag lectures] including this talk, because they find eloquent speakers who often speak on topics that ordinarily do not particularly interest me and I would otherwise not be at all familiar with," freshman Julia Swavola said. "But, the speakers are so enthusiastic and knowledgeable that they make the talks very entertaining."