Achau Nguyen Challenges! (again)

colin said:
I think the words have to be in the right order too. So if AN sends "watch" for word #3 but the receiver has it as word #18, it's a miss.

1 for 20 looks pretty impressive now! :-)
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I've just PMed Andyandy to give us some odds for getting 18/20, but getting one right, it seems to be as simple as 1:10,000/20 = 1 in 500. (assuming a list of potential words of 10,000) If the list is even 1000 words, the odds are 1 in 50 of getting one right. Getting 18 out of 20 is going to be an astronomical figure.

I don't know what the cost to Achau is in getting himself to the mainland for the attempt, but he'd be much better off to chase Ladbroke's than JREF, he could get 100,000:1 odds all day and get $20-50 million for a relatively small outlay.
 
The Atheist said:
I've just PMed Andyandy to give us some odds for getting 18/20, but getting one right, it seems to be as simple as 1:10,000/20 = 1 in 500. (assuming a list of potential words of 10,000) If the list is even 1000 words, the odds are 1 in 50 of getting one right. Getting 18 out of 20 is going to be an astronomical figure.

I don't know what the cost to Achau is in getting himself to the mainland for the attempt, but he'd be much better off to chase Ladbroke's than JREF, he could get 100,000:1 odds all day and get $20-50 million for a relatively small outlay.
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He’s not a gamer but a believer alright – god love 'im. :-)

And the more I think about, just getting 2 out of 20 right or one in the right spot would cause me to leave the room to get some new underwear!
 
colin said:
He’s not a gamer but a believer alright – god love 'im. :-)

And the more I think about, just getting 2 out of 20 right or one in the right spot would cause me to leave the room to get some new underwear!
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Me too!

Just had a reply from Andyandy, and the following figure is the chances of getting 18/20 based on random probability. N.B. This is for in any order. To get 18/20 and have them in the correct order would be a mgnitude less likely again, but when this is your chance of success:

0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000019,

I think 5/20 would qualify as "astounding" or such other superlative I could grab at the time.

Even at odds of 100,000:1, he'd be getting ripped off. Setting odds at anything under 1,000,000:1 is a steal.

Here you go, a betting example for you.

Even if Achau had a 5 in 1 chance of getting a word right, in the right order, the odds of him paying out would 3.8 trillion to one.

Whichever way you look at it, Achau will deserve every penny if he hits the jackpot.
 
colin said:
The sender and receiver are in separate rooms with no communication between them (except telepathy of course) ;-) . A think a code would require one of skeptics to be in on it.

Electronic implants however…
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Depends onthe set up. There are cases of subtle communication where "no communication" was supposedly possible.

I expect that Randi can set it up to prevent that, but the initial write-up worried me a bit on that score.
 
Ripley Twenty-Nine said:
I'm not sure that Edge falls into the same category as the rest mentioned. He was tested in the past; in fact, he showed up right on Randi's doorstep and asked to be tested right away. He did what I think any of us would do if we were actually convinced that we had super powers.
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I stand corrected. Where is the info about the test though? Was Edge one of the challengers who is listed in the applicant forum?

He's been humming and hawing about the retest. Really though, who can blame the guy; he wants to make sure he has the greatest possible chance of winning the million after failing pretty spectacularly last time, and offering some of the most cringe-worthy excuses imaginable.
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Yeah, funny how it seems to come down to increasing the odds... I would think that with a super power, you could just... well... BEAT the odds, and that would indicate that you have a super-power...
 
The Atheist said:
Me too!

Just had a reply from Andyandy, and the following figure is the chances of getting 18/20 based on random probability. N.B. This is for in any order. To get 18/20 and have them in the correct order would be a mgnitude less likely again, but when this is your chance of success:

0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000019,
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yes....hope that's right :)

based on a simplified binomial expansion model, with probability of a correct guess at 1/1000 [based on 1000 noun pool]

[latex]p(18 \ge n) = {20\choose18}.{\frac{1}{1000}}^{18}.{\frac{999}{1000}}^2 + {20\choose 19}.{\frac{1}{1000}}^{19}.{\frac{999}{1000}} + {20\choose 20}.{\frac{1}{1000}}^{20} [/latex]

suffice to say, it would be very impressive :D
 
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Cuddles said:
Not only would it be impressive, but I suspect that there are rather more than 1000 nouns to choose from.
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yes, that was a constraint TA suggested to be added....with 1000 nouns specified for the pool.....

if it were out of the pool of all nouns in the English language, well....we'd probably run out of zeroes :D

let's see....

just confining ourselves to the OED words, this site suggests there would be around 110,000 nouns to choose from....

so

[latex]p(18 \ge n) = {20\choose18}.{\frac{1}{110,000}}^{18}.{\frac{109,999}{110,000}}^2 + {20\choose 19}.{\frac{1}{110,000}}^{19}.{\frac{109,999}{110,000}} + {20\choose 20}.{\frac{1}{110,000}}^{20} [/latex]

which gives approx
3.4x10-89
a truly ridiculously small number, given that 1089 far exceeds estimates for the number of atoms in the known universe...:)
 
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Klaymore said:
I stand corrected. Where is the info about the test though? Was Edge one of the challengers who is listed in the applicant forum?(snip)...
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The info is right here: http://www.randi.org/jr/032902.html. Over the next few weeks, edge complained that he had been distracted by gold in the titles stamped on a set of books (it turned out not to be gold), then by a copy machine in the next room, and so on. He also said then that the conditions for the test were bad, although at the time of the test he said everything was fine.
 
A determined cheat could have rigged the original test without insider help, without any electronics carried by either the sender or receiver and without using acoustic signaling such as tapping.
 
SezMe said:
How?
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Nguyen was in a closed room upstairs. He would have to transmit a message to identify each word. I've ruled out accustics either through the air or through the building. I've also excluded electronics because that would be too obvious and the testers would be looking for such. Paranormal means are also excluded because that wouldn't be cheating. Keep in mind that to transmit information requires an energy carrier and a means of modulating or encoding the carrier.

The receiver was downstairs. Again, to receive the information there needs to be an energy carrier and a means to detect the information encoded on the carrier.

Neither are allowed to bring any electronics to facilitate the communications but I did not say that there could not be electronics involved. Keep in mind that the transmission vector could be completely different from the receiver vector if there is a third party involved acting as a relay.

There could be a number of different possible communications vectors. I've thought of a couple. Maybe someone else can think of others if I don't spoil it by revealing the answer just now.
 
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