Stephen J Puetz

A review:

By Home Gamer "Cash Playa" (Burbank, Ca.)

Over the past century, the Big Bang Theory has dominated public awareness. Alternate theories have come and gone, mainly because of their inability to be substantiated. However, Steve Puetz and Glenn Borchardt have successfully created a new theory of the universe (the Universal Cycle Theory) that seriously challenges all aspects of the Big Bang Theory, and do so with an enormous amount of credibility and substantiation.
Such a theory would naturally necessitate very complex ideas and explanations. And this book does contain equations and mathematics that only the most educated in the field could possibly understand. Yet, the authors have been able to relay the essence of their theory in a relatively simple and easy to understand way. Perhaps this is because the theory is based on mechanics, and the way things work that we are all very familiar with.
For instance, the spiral arms of galaxies are simulated in a water-vortex experiment that anyone can duplicate in their own home. Just as we are all familiar with the different layers of Earth's atmosphere, so the authors explain gravitation by similar layering. Just as we all know that matter exists in three possible states (solid, liquid, & gaseous), so is gravitation explained to exist in these familiar states as well. The familiarity we all share with the movement of water (whether it moves in waves, or spins around as it goes down a drain) helps us to understand the movement of planets, stars, and galaxies. The Universal Cycle Theory compels the reader to seriously consider that the universe is infinite, not finite; and does so in such a logical straight-forward manner, that it is impossible to ignore.
Statistician Steve Puetz derives from his expertise that all things in the universe occur in fairly predictable patterns and cycles, first explained in his Unified Cycle Theory. Dr. Glenn Borchardt contributes his vast knowledge of soil techtonics and universal philosophy (first explained in The Scientific Worldview). Together, they have produced The Universal Cycle Theory, which will emerge as the leading theory of the universe.
The topics in this book range from astronomy and cosmology, to biology, physics, geology, and many many more. But, it would simply take too long to cover all of them in such a short review. I can only say that I urge anyone interested in science and the universe to purchase this book. It is illuminating, fascinating, and you won't be disappointed. And best of all, despite the complexity, you will be pleasantly surprised by how much of it you will actually understand. The Universal Cycle Theory does away with archaic ideas of the universe that are contradictory, seemingly paradoxical, and confusing. And you don't get the sense that you are reading a dull, dry science book. You feel as though the authors are right there in the room with you, explaining the very things you always wanted to know. If I could give this book more than five stars, I would. It's one of the very best books on the subject that I have ever read. But don't just buy the Universal Cycle Theory for yourself. Buy it for your friends. Buy it for your relatives. Or urge them to buy it, just as I am urging you. But I'm certain once you've read it for yourself, you'll be just as excited as I am.

Other reviews at: http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Cycle-Theory-Neomechanics-Hierarchically/product...… (más)

This is an excellent, remarkable, and most outstanding book of sweeping breadth. This, or some version of it, is destined to become a classic. Puetz, a mathematician, statistician, and financial wizard, has compiled data concerning cycles with wave lengths that extend from days to billions of years. The known cycles that affect Earth, of course, are either geomagnetic or gravitational, appearing as the result of interactions between the Sun, Moon, Earth, and other planets. But, through detailed analysis of as much cyclic data as he apparently could get his hands on, Puetz has discovered a third set of all-encompassing cycles that he calls EUWS (Extra-Universal Wave Series) cycles.

For the "unification" whereof he speaks, Puetz simply takes the number 22.176 billion years and divides it by 3, getting 7.392 billion years, and then divides the result again by 3 to get 2.464 billion years, and so on. At first, I was quite skeptical, thinking that all this was mere numerology. That was until Puetz used the calculation to show that all of the geologic epochs fell right into this cyclic behavior. My favorite, because I have worked with Quaternary geology for decades, is the 41,728-year EUWS cycle. The data for the eastern equatorial Pacific sea temperature for the last million years shows remarkable agreement with that cycle (Chart 22C). The precision surpasses that of the 41,000-year cycle observed long ago by Milankovitch (1941) as well as the more recent correction to 42,000 years, attributed to cyclic variations in the axial tilt of the earth. Of course, in nearly all cycle theories, various subcycles can exhibit constructive and destructive interference. This results in extra peaks or diminished peaks that at first appear to be random variations within the major intercyclic periods. As in all of science, real data generally give skeptics plenty of chance for doubt. Puetz handles part of this intercyclic noise with something called the Turning Point Distribution Principle: "This principle describes how the EUWS cycles reverse direction at tops and bottoms. Variations from theoretical turning points distribute themselves in a non-random manner. ...If a EUWS cycle misses its theoretical turning point, alternatives include theoretical turning points of its sub-cycles. This tendency produces non-random, stair-step distributions" (p. 5). Being a neomechanist, I can appreciate this fully. The ideal cyclic motion of a simple pendulum, for instance, is either forward or back. To get subcycles, there would have to be additional causes (other bodies impacting the pendulum).

Puetz goes on to calculate 13,909-year, 4,636-year, 1,545-year, 515-year, 172-year, 57-year, 19-year, 6.36-year, and 2.12-year cycles. There even are 258.11-day, 86.04-day, and 26.68-day cycles, all of which he supports with data drawn from the literature, including the stock market. Given his focus, there probably is some cherry picking involved, but too many of the peaks and troughs are precisely as predicted by the calculation. I haven't checked all the charts for accuracy, but the references for the raw data are meticulously included, with many readily available on the Internet. You can judge for yourself. Reconstructed temperature variations for Greenland appear to be remarkably in agreement with the 1,545-year cycle (p. 281). He shows the correlation between sunspot and climate cycles with the rise and fall of various civilizations. And most pertinent to our present situation, he shows that the 57-year EUWS cycle coincides with the highly controversial Kondratieff Wave cycle in economics. The 57-year cycle postdicts four market crashes in a row: 1720, 1778, 1835, and 1892. He calculates that the possibility of this happening by chance is 1 in 10 million (1/57 X 1/57 X 1/57 X 1/57). The 1929 market crash came one 19-year panic cycle early. Most surprising: Both the 57-year and 172-year cycles predicted a major depression to begin in 2007. Sound familiar? He also points out that "Since 1934, the Dow Jones Industrial Average correlated with the 2.12-year EUWS frequency for 34 cycles." If you think there is profit potential in all this, you can get Puetz's financial newsletter [...], which at the moment, is more bearish than anything else I have seen.

The book goes into some interesting esoteric detail: Who knew that the price of rice in China pretty much followed the 172-year cycle ever since 976 AD? Who knew that the rise and fall of civilizations followed a 515-year EUWS cycle? One needs to appreciate a lot of data in chart form and bear with quite a bit of necessary repetition. Some of the conclusions will be a stretch for sociologists, historians, and others more knowledgeable about the details, but the shear extent of this first attempt is outstanding.

Puetz's data doesn't shrink from controversy. Not only does he see 2007 as the beginning of another Great Depression, he also points out it's coincidence with the sudden drop in global temperatures that occurred in January of that year (Chart 28K). Note that the figure shows a general rise in global temperatures at the beginning of the 20th century, similar to the 2-mm/yr rise in sea level that I pointed out previously (Borchardt, 2009). Next questions: Will sea level begin to drop along with global temperatures? Will the so-called "great recession" become the "Global Depression" that Puetz predicts? There is no doubt that Puetz is on to something really big here. But what is it?

Without a mechanism, all these data are still looking for a home. One disingenuous reviewer covers the indeterministic view: "This new concept shows that someone or something with extreme intelligence and wisdom is in control of us. ...someone out there, who has our best interest at heart, is in absolute control of everything" (Ott, 2009). Egads! That fellow must have slept through the part about cycles that might leave us freezing in the dark. It seems clear that the EUWS cycles are associated with changes in climate. Puetz shows, however, that the conventionally accepted 11-year sunspot cycle and the Milankovitch cycles are not sufficient to produce many of the effects he draws attention to. It certainly wouldn't account for "Snowball Earth," the time about 700 million years ago (p. 178) when most of the planet was covered with ice. One can see increases in crop yields, surpluses, and price declines as the effects of increases in global warmth, but two-year fluctuations in the stock market with special emphasis on the full moon? Nonetheless, that is just what the data show. This definitely is a "unified" theory, but it is missing a central character, perhaps some supermicrocosm that acts as an "Extra-Universal" cause.

Why the number 22.176 billion and the divisor 3? The whole book is just begging for a formal mathematical solution. That's the obvious next challenge for Puetz to complete the theory and silence the inevitable critics. To sum up, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the universe from a univironmental point of view. A magnificent compilation and a towering achievement!

References

Borchardt, Glenn, 2009, Global warming 2 millimeters at a time, [...]

CRU, 2008, Climate Research Unit, Data: Temperature[...]: University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Lawrence, K.T., 2006, Eastern equatorial Pacific 5 Myr Alkenone SST and paleoproductivity reconstruction: Boulder, CO, IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology. Data Contribution Series #2006-044. NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program.

Milankovitch, Milutin, 1941 [1969], Canon of insolation and the ice-age problem: Jerusalem, Israel Program for Scientific Translations, v. 132.

Ott, Donald, 2009, You will want to keep this book! [...]

Puetz, S.J., 2009, The unified cycle theory: How cycles dominate the structure of the universe and influence life on earth: Denver, [...], 489 p.… (más)