Of course we're all familiar with the "clustering" phenomenon that occurs when thousand immortal monkeys banging away on typewriters, at some point during their "lifespan" type type out the complete works of Shakespeare in the precise order that Shakespeare wrote them.
So now try to follow along carefully with my line of reasoning: An actuary, being fully aware of such "clustering" proceeds to purchase a thousand monkeys and place them in front of computer keyboards (you will have a hard time getting your mitts on a thousand working typewriters nowadays), and they proceed to type out the complete works of Shakespeare in the precise order that Shakespeare wrote them. The actuary cries "Eureka!" and runs to his CTO proclaiming the need for a huge research program to get to the bottom of this improbable event. The CTO proceeds to fire the actuary. In the termination letter written by the CTO to the actuary, which is the CTO more likely to say: 1) "You are being terminated because your so-called 'Eureka!' event demonstrates you have not understood clustering." 2) "You are being terminated because not only did you spend all that time and money on getting a bunch of monkeys in front of word processors, but your failure to understand that monkeys typing out the complete works of Shakespeare in the order he wrote them bears no reasonable relationship to an event that we might underwrite as an insurance company." ? On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Alexander Hollins < alexander.holl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Are you familiar with "clustering"? just because a rare event happens > twice close together, doesn't change the rarity based on previous data. You > just happened to hit the probability twice. > > > On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 1:14 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Think about this like an actuary, folks: >> >> When setting insurance premiums, one must have a model. If your model >> says that an event should occur only less than once in a million years and >> the event occurred a few days ago, you might think your model needs >> revision. The question then becomes how much to invest in revising that >> model? If the events modeled are of no particular economic importance -- >> if the damages underwritten are likely to be mundane in scale -- then one >> might not invest all that much money in revising the model. >> >> However, if the model is predicting events that are on the scale of >> nuclear attack in terms of destructive potential -- or worse -- extinction >> events; one might want to invest substantial resources in revising the >> model so that the probability of the observed events aren't so wildly out >> of line with reality. >> >> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 1:43 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> The odds of this coincidence are literally far less than one in a >>> million. The naive calculation is based on two like celestial events that >>> independently occur once in a hundred years occurring on the same day: >>> >>> 1/(365*100)^2 >>> = 1/1332250000 >>> >>> Note: that is one in a billion. Discount by a factor of a thousand for >>> whatever your argument is and you are still one in a million. >>> >>> This is not a coincidence. >>> >>> PS: The mass of the Russian meteor has been revised upward by a factor >>> of >>> 1000<http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/19/russian-meteorite-1000-times-bigger-than-originally-thought/> >>> . >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 2:16 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com>wrote: >>> >>>> I believe he's referring to the appearance of a glowing object >>>> approaching from _behind_ the main mass that correlates in time and >>>> direction to the ejection of fragments with its disappearance into the main >>>> mass. Yes, we're talking delta-velocities that are outside of plausible >>>> explanation by ballistic missiles or any other known propulsion technology. >>>> Ignoring the out-going fragments, the most plausible explanation I can >>>> come up with for this approach-from-behind object is modification of the >>>> source footage. An optical artifact doesn't cut it due to the time >>>> correlation with the expulsion of fragments unless someone can come up with >>>> a optical artifact that would also explain those fragments. >>>> >>>> There are a few statistical anomalies surrounding the celestial events >>>> -- which may be explained independently but taken as independent events >>>> seems to multiply their probabilities towards zero: >>>> >>>> 1) Regardless of whether detection of asteroids has just recently >>>> become advanced enough to detect those on the order of 50m passing inside >>>> of geostationary orbit, we have the phenomenon of the first public >>>> announcement of such an event (Asteroid 2012 DA14) making its closest >>>> approach on Feb 15, 2012. >>>> >>>> 2) The shockwave from the Feb 15 Russian meteor was sufficient to cause >>>> widespread physical damage in populated areas and such intense shockwaves >>>> correlated with meteoric fireballs have not been reported for decades. >>>> >>>> 3) The vectors of these two objects -- asteroid and large meteor -- >>>> appear statistically independent. >>>> >>>> It is difficult to assign an independent probability to #1 since we're >>>> potentially talking about a once-in-history phenomenon relating not to the >>>> mere close-passage of a sizable asteroid -- but rather to the phenomenon of >>>> public announcement. >>>> >>>> It is easier to assign an independent probability to #2 since it is >>>> hard for such a large shockwave to go unreported if the meteor enters over >>>> land, and by taking into account the fraction of Earth's surface that is >>>> land we can increase the expected frequency only a few fold at best. >>>> >>>> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Edmund Storms >>>> <stor...@ix.netcom.com>wrote: >>>> >>>>> What is so unusual about this video? The meteor exploded, which sent >>>>> fragments in all directions, including straight ahead as the video shows. >>>>> As for shooting down an object slowing from 17000 mph in the atmosphere, >>>>> where is the common sense? >>>>> >>>>> Ed >>>>> >>>>> On Feb 17, 2013, at 7:17 AM, Jones Beene wrote: >>>>> >>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-octPHs9gcs&feature=player_embedded#t=0s >>>>> **** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> NASA failed to mention the surprising activity that seems to show up >>>>> in this Russian video, in slo-mo.**** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> The video could have been altered - with the addition of a fast >>>>> moving object that seems to impact with the object to make it explode (at >>>>> about 27 seconds).**** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> Since the original story of a missile shoot-down came from Russian >>>>> military, why not give it some credence?**** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> Unless of course it can be shown that this video was altered.**** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> NASA's blog >>>>> states<http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Watch%20the%20Skies/posts/post_1360947411975.html#comments> >>>>> :**** >>>>> >>>>> "Asteroid DA14's trajectory is in the opposite direction"**** >>>>> >>>>> ** ** >>>>> 180 degrees is pretty far from 90 degrees.**** >>>>> ** ** >>>>> What is your cite, Terry?**** >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >
