Calculating devices for non-arbitrary price determination and rational
decision making. The historical problem of value has been solved in this
invention. The solution represents the first major breakthrough in social
science. Value is defined as the sum total of all the future benefits and
losses. An infinite spreadsheet establishes a deterministic
relationship--described by an equal number of equations and
unknowns--between the price and all the factors affecting the price in an
expected time space extending from now to the infinite future. The
infinite spreadsheet expands the current finite spreadsheet to infinity.
It does not assume a resale price in the determination of the price. The
current finite spreadsheet for planning and decision making should not be
allowed because it hides material information, namely, the future beyond
the finite time. The scientific method based on empirical verification is
not always applicable in social science. In particular, the solution to
price cannot be empirically verified because deterministic sets of data
can never be collected when the infinite future, which will never arrive,
is involved. In order to carry the calculation to infinity, the inputs are
expressed as approximate time-invariant variables. Since the present price
depends on the future price, the calculation is done in a time-reversed
fashion. The law of supply and demand, or the general economic equilibrium
analysis, emphasizes the spatial dependence of the price and has neglected
the importance of the temporal consideration, which is investigated in
detail in the infinite spreadsheet. A quantitative supply and demand model
for multiple commodities with similar functionality and with a uniform
price can be constructed by summing over the quantities whose various
prices are determined individually by the infinite spreadsheet. In turn,
the quantitative model can be used to obtain the inputs for the infinite
spreadsheet, with which it forms a new quantitative foundation for
economics and ushers in a new age of social science.