Apr

2

There once was a primitive man in a farming village who didn't like manual labor, but wanted to get paid to tell farmers when the rainy season was at hand. Everyone already knew from the ancients about the length of shadows cast by sticks when the sun was high over-head. The villagers made a standard stick and marked shadows so they could look for the time between the longest and shortest. But the shadow forecast could be weeks off, and sometimes months.

One thing the weatherman noticed is that before it rained it got darker outside. Since he didn't like the outdoors (and liked to help the harem with the cooking), he decided to automate his system by staying indoors and having a messenger tell him every time it got darker outside.

Unfortunately it got dark every day, and sometimes it clouded up but didn't rain at all. Checking his records over time, only a small fraction of outer darkenings were correlated with imminent rain. He undertook a serious study so he could use experience and knowledge of nature to help: The weatherman learned that if it got dark AND the humidity increases, the odds of rain were much higher than for either condition alone. When he discovered how to measure air pressure (using a closed glass tube inverted into a tub of water) and the air pressure drops, he learned to make an even better forecast.

Adding understanding and experience greatly improved his forecast accuracy, still he often got it wrong. However he didn't have to be 100%; only do it better than others who might claim his job.

The farmers in his area had different levels of success. Those able to more accurately time the planting of crops did much better in certain years, and many farmers diligently monitored them for signs of when to plant. Year after year there were fantastic successes and dismal failures, but over a lifetime success didn't seem to correlate with efforts to precisely time planting.

Despite the obvious discrepancy the farmers were often afraid not to pay the weatherman, who eventually became the richest in the whole village and could afford the biggest harem.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search