Patterns in the Stars

Several years ago, my wife gave me a telescope for Christmas. That same year, my daughter gave me a book on astronomy. Being a mechanical engineer, I had never spent much time thinking about astronomy before receiving this book. The book described the shapes of the various constellations and how to find them in the night sky. The book also described how the constellations were useful in keeping time and telling seasons from their movements and positions. It also explained why various star groupings were associated with more familiar objects like animals, tools, and weapons. The myriad of stars would remain totally random and meaningless had not the shapes of familiar objects been used to capture the outlines of the star groupings. The familiar shapes of constellations allowed the ancients to watch their movements and positions.

To me, these thoughts were a revelation. It was the first time I had ever thought of a star-filled night sky as a field containing millions of pieces of data. That data only became useful when specific patterns were identified, and then only when those patterns were found to have a relationship with some profound event, like the passage of the seasons.

Patterns in Behaviors Leading to Failures

This talk about stars and seasons is interesting but how does it apply to reliability? If...