Raza wrote:
btjaus wrote:
Don't worry professorelite, many of us have noticed and ooh-aahed over your impressive equation.
To those who say that TNT doesn't put that much thought into it - that's the whole point. professorelite isnt trying to find the equation they're using - obviously they wouldn't bother making it that complx, he is simply trying to interpret their previous behaviour, and make a model that accurately predicts the arrival of the next clue. It did so for the previous clue, and because TNT has to be on a deadline, they will probably quite closely adhere to it.
Of course, using mathematics to predict human behavious doesn't always work. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I'd say unless you're talking about the average behaviour of a lot of people, it's very unlikely to work. Too many factors involved we don't have a clue about, many of which may not be constant throughout the plot. Looking at things inductively and assigning patterns that we know aren't really
how it works based on as small an amound as 11 experiments is pretty much a guessing game, and without being as unspecific as 'may 30th to june 10th' not particulary likely to predict anything.
I suppose it's amusing though.
I'll agree to a point that predicting human behaviour using simple mathematics is folly, at best, and it's true that using an equation - probably formed with regression - isn't exactly high powered. However - maths has shown to give suitably accurate predictions of basic behaviour, especially in the case of criminal behaviour, eg. location of serial killer 'base of operations' according to the spread pattern of their crimes - because serial killers try to make locations 'random', they have them spread out - which is inherently unrandom - that is to say, a random sequence would have the 'crimes' in some cases very close together - something a human serial killer would never risk.
While that all sounds rather macabre, I think there is, suprisingly, some merit in the use of the equation. First, there would be quite a few people involved in the plot, not a huge amount of people, yes, but several nonetheless. Second of all, the issue of deadlines - if you have certain amount of work to do by a certain time, you break it into parts - in this case, 12 constellations. They have quite clearly broken them up evenly in the early part of the plot, and took slightly longer with the latest few.
Because of the dynamics of the group, completing work for a deadline, I feel that the predictive equation has more merit than people give it credit for. Just look how good the previous model predicted the latest clue!
I'll put it out there - the next clue will be easily inside the upper and lower limits of professorlite's equation - probably quite close to his mid range prediction.
Besides, whats the harm in guessing?