Random Number Generator Predicted 911 & Tsunami

This is incredibly freaky and would probably belong in paranormal were it not for the fact that appears in Rednova and is decidedly scientific.

A small machine that turns out random numbers is apparently capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.

Earth shattering indeed. The experiment started out as an attempt to see if human thought could affect the outcome of randomly generated numbers and surprisingly it could.

(quote)
But the project threw up its greatest enigma on September 11, 2001.

As the world stood still and watched the horror of the terrorist attacks unfold across New York, something strange was happening to the Eggs.

Not only had they registered the attacks as they actually happened, but the characteristic shift in the pattern of numbers had begun four hours before the two planes even hit the Twin Towers." (quote)

This seems to tie in with the role conciousness seems to play in quantum mechanics and the existance of a universal consciousness. Some truly mindbending stuff.


[edit on 12-2-2005 by deevee]

[edit on 12-2-2005 by deevee]

That's pretty interesting, I found some more on it here: noosphere.princeton.edu...

If all they are doing is generating random numbers does that mean we could all use our own computers to try a similar experiment. I could easily program something in a few lines of code to generate random numbers

wait wait wait. How do they know it's predicting something if it's only spitting out numbers? Did the numbers become not-so-random? How would you know anything other than the ordinary was going on using a method like this?

OH MY GOD, IT JUST SPIT OUT 343948579345.32994357..... THE WORLD IS OVER!!!!!

see what I mean?

Originally posted by Greyhaven7
wait wait wait. How do they know it's predicting something if it's only spitting out numbers? Did the numbers become not-so-random? How would you know anything other than the ordinary was going on using a method like this?

OH MY GOD, IT JUST SPIT OUT 343948579345.32994357..... THE WORLD IS OVER!!!!!

see what I mean?

Congratulations on reading the entire article.

One of these new technologies was a humble-looking black box known was a Random Event Generator (REG). This used computer technology to generate two numbers - a one and a zero - in a totally random sequence, rather like an electronic coin-flipper.

The pattern of ones and noughts - 'heads' and 'tails' as it were - could then be printed out as a graph. The laws of chance dictate that the generators should churn out equal numbers of ones and zeros - which would be represented by a nearly flat line on the graph. Any deviation from this equal number shows up as a gently rising curve.

Greyhaven7, as far I understand it, it is only 0's and 1's, randomly generated, so that at the end of the day we have roughly equal number of both.
Before major events there is a significant increase in one of those two numbers, something is influencing the randomness.

sorry, posted too soon, I didn't see that there was a link in the original post. I get it now. =) thanks guys

This is from the article:

Cynics will quite rightly point out that there is always some global event that could be used to 'explain' the times when the Egg machines behaved erratically. After all, our world is full of wars, disasters and terrorist outrages, as well as the occasional global celebration. Are the scientists simply trying too hard to detect patterns in their raw data?

Those were my thoughts.

The team behind the project insist not. They claim that by using rigorous scientific techniques and powerful mathematics it is possible to exclude any such random connections.

What were the rigorous scientific techniques? What were the powerful mathematics?

The article doesn't explain at all why they felt the little black box was time travelling and recording these major events; except hinting there was fluctuations that suggested in wasn't random anymore.

Originally posted by paperclip

Before major events there is a significant increase in one of those two numbers, something is influencing the randomness.

So, there's no way to tell WHAT will happen? Does it just indicate "something" is going to happen?

Yeah it is just indicates something will happen. The significance of it is huge, even though we don't know what exactly will happen.


Lucid Lunacy, the article was written for general populace, hence the lack of dozens of pages of mathematic equations. I am sure that those 41 top world mathematicians working on it have writen a bit more about it.
The absence of explanation does not negate the very existence of the phenomena. It just means that we humans haven't figured it out exactly yet.

i wonder if there is any significance to whether the increase in frequency occurs with 0's or 1's?

I still dont understand how this thing is "predicting". I think the title of this tread is a bit misleading.

ALso, generating a series of random numbers in a computer program is actually not random at all. Its impossible to create a
"random" number generator through a computer program.

Originally posted by Greyhaven7
wait wait wait. How do they know it's predicting something if it's only spitting out numbers? Did the numbers become not-so-random? How would you know anything other than the ordinary was going on using a method like this?

OH MY GOD, IT JUST SPIT OUT 343948579345.32994357..... THE WORLD IS OVER!!!!!

see what I mean?

I see what you mean.... Good perspective.

As the saying goes: "what a co-ink-idink!"

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
What were the rigorous scientific techniques? What were the powerful mathematics?

See noosphere.princeton.edu...

The article doesn't explain at all why they felt the little black box was time travelling and recording these major events; except hinting there was fluctuations that suggested in wasn't random anymore.

Agreed. The article does not go in depth. Also of note is that correlation does not prove causation. If correlation was there for events and not there for absences for events, it could also imply that the machine was causing the events rather than predicting them.

Originally posted by LuDaCrIs
ALso, generating a series of random numbers in a computer program is actually not random at all. Its impossible to create a
"random" number generator through a computer program.

If you read the research instead of the articles (which don't explain much and sensationalize the work), you'll see that the random numbers aren't generated in a digital state machine, but are sampled from analog phenomena.

The thing that has me baffled is that 9/11 was a man-made disaster. The earthquake/tsunami was a natural disaster. How this machine was able to 'predict' both of those events is interesting. If it was two seperate things, one predicting negative energy forces of man and one predicting negative natural forces, it would make more sense to me.

Why isn't there more information on this? Doesn't it seem like this would be all over the news or at the very least shows like 20/20, 60 minutes or Dateline would feature this?

Great find. I'll be curious to read more about this.

Jemison

Originally posted by Jemison
The thing that has me baffled is that 9/11 was a man-made disaster. The earthquake/tsunami was a natural disaster. How this machine was able to 'predict' both of those events is interesting. If it was two seperate things, one predicting negative energy forces of man and one predicting negative natural forces, it would make more sense to me.

I think you are viewing it in a metaphysical concept (understandable considering the nature of the findings) but I think it speaks more to our increasing realization that time is not a linear phenomenon.

from the article

It is possible - in theory - that time may not just move forwards but backwards, too. And if time ebbs and flows like the tides in the sea, it might just be possible to foretell major world events. We would, in effect, be 'remembering' things that had taken place in our future.

So as cosmic as it seems, it could merely be a manifestation of the true nature of time rather than our human perception of it.

::scratches head::

Ok pardon my stupidity but, in the chart on the 'results' page of the GCP, it's obvious that throughout the years, the REG numbers go up. I understand that the REG number is the thing to look at, right? The higher it is, supposedly the event is 'stronger' (not to say 'worse' or 'better'). So what exactly does it mean when the REG #'s of 1998 are in the single digits, but by 2005 they're in the 50's and 60's? Does that mean...events in the world are getting worse? Or does it mean more people are aware of what's going on in the world? Are we more informed? Maybe it's the advent of the internet that connects us all, so we're more aware of what's up around the globe?

I find all of this fascinating but I tried to read the FAQ and my brain blew a fuse...gawd I hate math!

I think you are viewing it in a metaphysical concept (understandable considering the nature of the findings) but I think it speaks more to our increasing realization that time is not a linear phenomenon.

Exactly. The entire concept of time not being linear is so hard for me to comprehend. I thought I did a pretty good job of thinking out of the box but this is as if the box has gone to the moon, did a tap-dance on jupiter, played soccer with Mars, yoga with Pluto, hide-n-go seek with Saturn and then had high tea with the Queen of England.

Really cool stuff but super hard for me to grasp!

Jemison

After seeing that article I though how it would be interesting to create a little experiment using generator of random 1's and 0's.

So here's my take:
Random Number Graph - Random 1 or 0 generator with graph display

Graph is refreshed about 10-120 times per second with new random 1 or 0. When 0 comes up, graph goes down 1 pixel, when "1" comes, it goes 1 pixel up.

If there is a consistent growing spike it means that "1" has been randomly generated few times in a row, so it will add up (1+1+1+1) which will appear as growth or decline (if 0's are generated) in graph.

Pretty simple, so don't take this too seriously, I don't think interpreted scripting language could be as relevant for this as specified hardware. Just a little funny experiment

This whole thing is very reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke's book Childhood's End. It has a lot to do with time, mainly that it's all already written out and a lot of the major events throughout history, and especially religious history, were actually distortions of visions of the future and past.

Anyway, it's pretty hard to say whether or not this contraption actually did "predict" these world altering events. Though it is possible that it did, it's just as possible that it was a fluke. Maybe they could run two or more of these simultaneously and see if the spikes, dips, and whatever else were somewhat similar whenever such a major event happens.

EDIT: Whoa italics...

[edit on 2/13/2005 by cmdrkeenkid]

cmdrkeenkid....i saw somthing similar to this on the discovery channel a while ago, where they did just that.....they had lil random number generators on computers all over the world that would relay they're information daily to a central server, then corralate all the info.

they where able to see spikes before major disasters happened, as well as spikes when global parties (ie: martigrais and the like) or huge religious cerimonies took place.....

i made a post about it quite a while ago, but sadly got no replies