SlagA
Saturday 12th September 2009 2:56pm [Edited]
Blackwood
5,335 posts
Quote: Ronnie Anderson @ September 12 2009, 12:52 AM BST
I think even if he did correctly guess the lottery numbers as he claims...
This is a social experiment in how easy it is for a con trick (dressed up as pseudo-science or psychic phenomena) to deceive a nation. Nope, he couldn't have predicted them using 'deep maths' or psychic phenomena. If so lottery winners would be mainly psychics and super-computer programmers.
The hidden balls weren't for building anticipation or 'legal' issues about predicting the draw. Because anyone who buys a lottery ticket is trying to predict the result. The delay was necessary to the illusion. He needed the delay to get the right numbers onto the balls.
In the 'reveal' programme: Did you notice the group of 24 were never allowed to total all of the psychic guesses (for themselves) and then divide by 24 or 23? There was no independent adjudicator. It was a few people working on one ball each and finally just one person was allowed to calculate the group's guesses. Why? Because DB was faking the 'maths' to give the appearance that refined psychic approaches were getting ever closer to the six-ball result. As the psychic guesses got better, the maths were done by just one person. That person was a stooge or was seeing the numbers DB wanted him to see. IIRC, the group had already received the lottery draw results before the group guesses were revealed; which is another clue that the figures were doctored to con us (and possibly more important, the group of 24 or 23 who must now be convinced of their psychic abilities).
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ September 12 2009, 12:55 AM BST
Incidentally, the coin thing may have been real:
The coin thing is not deep maths as DB claimed it was, IIRC. It was just another misdirection in showing how we accept things if they're dressed up in terms that seem intellectual.
Again, it's a trick with purely random sequences. If your opponent (as DB said) is forced to guess a sequence first, then you can frig your guess so that the first two of his tosses appear as the last two of your tosses. In that way he can never begin a winning sequence without you having had first crack at it. You'll win 50% of his winning runs before he can even complete them.