Derren Brown: The Events

As I say, every variable. Even an undetectably small breeze would change the outcome.

And the accuracy of the measurements would theoretically have to be infinite. Unless at the sub-subatomic level there's some kind of 'grid' that the positions of electrons, etc have to 'snap' to, like in a drawing app.

The more accurate the measurements, the longer the system can run without deviating appreciably from the observed behaviour. If everything was the same to a hundred decimal places then maybe you could run it for a few seconds with it displaying the same apparent behaviour. If a few billion places then maybe a few minutes.

But any discrepancy, no matter how small, will eventually alter the behaviour.

Kind of weird to think about it that way - all things observed, no matter how random they seem - may just be the product of simple, deterministic laws interacting in highly complex ways. Even the neurons in our brain are bound to the laws of physics, so is free will an illusion? Every thought we have is manifested as a particular flow of information through neural circuits and neurons are simple machines with a well-understood response that (as far as I can see) is entirely down to the molecular structure of the cell, the laws of electromagnetism & chemistry and the current state of the neuron (which must be finite in itself, as it is also manifested as an electrochemical configuration).

If all this is true then it must have been set in stone since the big bang that I would be here now writing this post!

~Earl Grey~ wrote:As I say, every variable. Even an undetectably small breeze would change the outcome.

And the accuracy of the measurements would theoretically have to be infinite. Unless at the sub-subatomic level there's some kind of 'grid' that the positions of electrons, etc have to 'snap' to, like in a drawing app.

The more accurate the measurements, the longer the system can run without deviating appreciably from the observed behaviour. If everything was the same to a hundred decimal places then maybe you could run it for a few seconds with it displaying the same apparent behaviour. If a few billion places then maybe a few minutes.

But any discrepancy, no matter how small, will eventually alter the behaviour.

Kind of weird to think about it that way - all things observed, no matter how random they seem - may just be the product of simple, deterministic laws interacting in highly complex ways. Even the neurons in our brain are bound to the laws of physics, so is free will an illusion? Every thought we have is manifested as a particular flow of information through neural circuits and neurons are simple machines with a well-understood response that (as far as I can see) is entirely down to the molecular structure of the cell, the laws of electromagnetism & chemistry and the current state of the neuron (which must be finite in itself, as it is also manifested as an electrochemical configuration).

If all this is true then it must have been set in stone since the big bang that I would be here now writing this post!

That may be true but there is no way it's going to help Derren Brown predict the lottery results using that method because he can't observe the universe to a theoretically infinite level. The only way this is possible is if he has access to the draw numbers before the generally public, ie through a time delay of the tv broadcast unless he has somehow switched the lottery balls with his own set that are weighted set so that the numbers he wants comes out.

I imagine if he could really predict the lottery with a high degree of accuracy he wouldn't bother with going on the telly as he could win a couple of large jackpots and just chill out for the rest of his life.

There is more to this than Derren predicting the actual lottery numbers (which I don’t think he can do). Maybe he is putting numbers out there and then predicting what numbers the audience would have chosen (i.e. those from the advert).

I will be very very impressed if he can pick 5 correct numbers before the draw though. And very intrigued as to how he did it.

Obviously Derren Brown can't predict the future and he'll get arrested if he's going to rig the lottery. Perhaps there's a delay in the Lottery broadcast which he'll exploit.

Pacman wrote:

~Earl Grey~ wrote:

Jaxley wrote:Don't think I'd want to be part of the Stuck to my Sofa one if it is all the people watching. Seems a bit too freaky.

How would that even work? Are people that suggestible?

Hell yes. He's done it before with people on his shows, doing it on TV just gives him better odds of getting at least a couple of people stuck

Spoiler if you don't want to know how that trick is done:



This is also how stage hypnotism works.

http://www.forward-splash.com/

One of the websites for The Events and has several of the numbers from the advert in the text.

satriales wrote:

Falsey wrote:The lottery is semi predictable. I thought this was bs, Untill my boss starting writing down all the numbers from every single draw and checking the frequency of numbers and which balls were 'due'.

He was several hundred pounds up before he lost interest.

That's the Gamblers Fallacy, thinking that a number is more likely to appear just because it hasn't shown up for a while.

What Earl Grey says is true, that in theory if you could recreate every single variable on an atomic level then it should be possible to recreate a draw or potentially predict the numbers. There is still some randomness involved though as you would need to know the exact time between the machine spinning and the balls being released, and that would need to be accurate to billionths of a second. Basically it's not what Derren Brown is going to be doing on Wednesday.

Yeah, you can't predict the numbers that will come up.

However, if you chose lots of numbers from the higher end of the spectrum (30 and above), if you do win you're more likely to win a bigger share of the prize. Its because a significant number of people play their birthdays, and obviously birthdays can't contain numbers over 31.

Memento Mori wrote:http://www.forward-splash.com/

One of the websites for The Events and has several of the numbers from the advert in the text.

I can make out 2, 6, 20, 25, 32 and 47.

Fm wrote:I wonder if one of The Events is the one in That Mitchell And Webb Look.

DO NOT THINK ABOUT THE EVENT, REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES.

I'm really looking forward to this.

Love Derren Brown, should be good.

MCN wrote:

Memento Mori wrote:http://www.forward-splash.com/

One of the websites for The Events and has several of the numbers from the advert in the text.

I can make out 2, 6, 20, 25, 32 and 47.

I only got numbers 2 9 7 25 47.....

Lucien wrote:

abcd wrote:I remember the horse racing trick....


Very clever and you almost believed it.

I suspect with this Lottery one there will be some sort of very intricate trick involved.

What trick? That was the worst show of his ever, when he revealed 'Oh I've been doing this with loads of people and covering all bases' I felt like I'd wasted an hour of my life.

Yeah I was well disappointed aswell. He's not really as amazing as everyone makes out sometimes.

lex-man wrote:

~Earl Grey~ wrote:As I say, every variable. Even an undetectably small breeze would change the outcome.

And the accuracy of the measurements would theoretically have to be infinite. Unless at the sub-subatomic level there's some kind of 'grid' that the positions of electrons, etc have to 'snap' to, like in a drawing app.

The more accurate the measurements, the longer the system can run without deviating appreciably from the observed behaviour. If everything was the same to a hundred decimal places then maybe you could run it for a few seconds with it displaying the same apparent behaviour. If a few billion places then maybe a few minutes.

But any discrepancy, no matter how small, will eventually alter the behaviour.

Kind of weird to think about it that way - all things observed, no matter how random they seem - may just be the product of simple, deterministic laws interacting in highly complex ways. Even the neurons in our brain are bound to the laws of physics, so is free will an illusion? Every thought we have is manifested as a particular flow of information through neural circuits and neurons are simple machines with a well-understood response that (as far as I can see) is entirely down to the molecular structure of the cell, the laws of electromagnetism & chemistry and the current state of the neuron (which must be finite in itself, as it is also manifested as an electrochemical configuration).

If all this is true then it must have been set in stone since the big bang that I would be here now writing this post!

That may be true but there is no way it's going to help Derren Brown predict the lottery results using that method because he can't observe the universe to a theoretically infinite level.

No gooseberry fool!

blackoutHERO wrote:

Lucien wrote:

abcd wrote:I remember the horse racing trick....


Very clever and you almost believed it.

I suspect with this Lottery one there will be some sort of very intricate trick involved.

What trick? That was the worst show of his ever, when he revealed 'Oh I've been doing this with loads of people and covering all bases' I felt like I'd wasted an hour of my life.

Yeah I was well disappointed aswell. He's not really as amazing as everyone makes out sometimes.

I always quite liked the way he f**ked up a little bit, with some of his tricks.

lex-man wrote:I always quite liked the way he f**ked up a little bit, with some of his tricks.

He does that on purpose ofcourse, to make it seem less like a trick.

I doubt that, his tricks can't work all the time after all. Might as well just show the genuine fuckups rather than orchestrate some extra ones just for the camera.

It would have been amazing TV if he had strawberry floated up the Russian Roulette trick....

Moggy wrote:It would have been amazing TV if he had strawberry floated up the Russian Roulette trick....

He basically did he fired an empty shot at the bag before firing the real one. Although blowing his brains out would have been a better f up.

Moggy wrote:It would have been amazing TV if he had strawberry floated up the Russian Roulette trick....

It was a blank.