Economics : Kondratieff Cycle : Astronomy : Saros Cycle : compared to Prices in Southern England : Annual Distribution of the Birth of Eminent Humans

The Kondratieff Cycle (also spelled Kondratiev) in Economics and The Saros Cycle in Astronomy Compared to Prices in Southern England and the Annual Distribution of the Birth of Eminent Humans 1700 - 1900

The 54-year to 56-year so-called Kondratiev or Kondratieff Cycle (for long term economic cycles generally see Jim Corredine) - already known to the ancient Babylonians as the Saros Cycle - is visible in fluctuations of the birth of eminent humans over comparable periods.

This cycle can be found in economic behavior and is related to the ca. 54-56 year cycle of eclipses
as caused by the positions of the Sun and the Moon. These were calculated even in ancient times at Stonehenge by the Aubrey holes (see Gerald S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded).

There is also a cycle of major nearly simultaneous conjunctions of multiple planets at ca. 55-year intervals.

The Kondratiev Cycle and Saros Cycle in Eminent Births 1700-1800 Compared to Prices in Southern England for the Same Period



The Kondratiev Cycle and Saros Cycle in Eminent Births 1800-1900 Compared to Prices in Southern England for the Same Period



The circa 54 - 56-year Saros Cycle was known to the Egyptians and Babylonians. It represents a combination of three circa 18-19 year cycles in which all eclipses between the moon, earth and Sun recur.

These are also the 56 Aubrey holes at Stonehenge, as pointed out by Gerald S. Hawkins in
Stonehenge Decoded (Doubleday & Co., Inc: Garden City, N.Y., 1965.

This same cycle (known as the Kondratieff Cycle) was "rediscovered" in modern times
by N.D. Kondratieff, who found this cycle mirrored in many economic phenomena. Indeed, his theories predict the current recession/depression as part of a normal economic long-term cycle:

"The Kondratieff wave cycle goes through four distinct phases of beneficial inflation (spring), stagflation (summer), beneficial deflation (autumn), and deflation (winter). Since, the last Kontratieff cycle ended around 1949, we have seen beneficial inflation 1949-1966, stagflation 1966-1982, beneficial deflation 1982-2000 and according to Kondratieff, we are now in the (winter) deflation cycle which should lead to depression."

One of the best known examples of this cycle was found by Lord Beverage, who proved such a cycle in European wheat prices from 1500 to 1869.

A similar cycle has also been found in various other phenomena:

• in the thickness of tree rings (the study of tree rings is called dendrochronology)
• in the amount of river run off, in varves (varves are sedimentary rock or mud deposits)
• in stock prices, and
  
• in international battles and wars.
  

And here, to the great surprise of many we can add one more cycle to the list of phenomena
which abide by the Kondratieff-Saros period, namely, the years of birth of eminent persons in the Micropaedia edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The graphs above use the price of consumables in Southern England 1700-1900 for comparison,
since this cycle is regarded to be the best established and documented of the Kondratieff Cycles.

The three curves in the graphs are:

1. the number of persons born, departures from trend, 9-year moving average; standard deviations
2. the price of consumables in Southern England (idealized), and
3. the price of consumables in Southern England, departures from trend, as taken from Gertrude Shirk, "Another Item in the 54-Year Cycle Study", CYCLES, Volume XXVI, No. 3, 1975, pp. 69-76, Foundation for the Study of Cycles, Pittsburgh, USA.

Interesting would be to compare this figure to population cycles and the price and availability of food in general, i.e. do the number of eminent humans increase or decrease in response to environmental needs of society?