Derren Brown
- Thread starter Ollie
- Start date
Screaming Coasters
Strata Poster
Because apparently, your word is the be and end all.
Stone Cold
Mega Poster
Firstly, I've never heard of this so called "deep maths" and I can't find mention of it on the channel 4 website anywhere.
However, in the coin trick he showed up, I would expect that Derren's "team" would win on average 7 times to Andrew's 1.
The reasoning is as follows, remember that Andrew requires HHH, Derren requires THH.
Now consider the first three coin tosses, there is a one in eight chance that it is HHH, if it is, Andrew has won, if it is not this, then the coin must have come up with a T.
Now consider the three coin tosses directly after the T, if they are HHH, then Derren has won because the sequence has gone THHH, and thus the THH occured before the HHH. Therefore, once a T has been tossed, it is impossible for Andrew to win, because any HHH must directly follow a T, and Derren will win on the second H.
Therefore, Andrew needs to win before a T is tossed, i.e. in the first three tosses, giving him a 1 in 8 chance.
I'm not sure if this maths follows for when the sequence is different, but it makes logical sense that Derren's sequence should have as its last two tosses the first two tosses of Andrew's sequence.
In any case, we only saw the HHH version and for all we know, the stunt was filmed a few times until someone picked HHH or TTT as appropriate.
As for wisdom of crowds, if they were wiser, they wouldn't have predicted 63 as an average lottery number. I'm unsure as to how this could occur, and it hardly seems a foolproof system, in this example it could be conveniently switched to 36, but what if it had been 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 etc etc etc etc.
Furthermore, it seems to be that this "free writing" is just a way for people to shut their eyes and notice that Derren and "accomplices" are looking at the numbers been given, adding them up, comparing to the actual numbers and then using a plant to submit balancing numbers.
In this video here if you pause it at 3.09 you get a nice overhead shot of the numbers. The 9th person seems to have huge numbers, enough to send the predictions non-sensical. Only one person is making these large predictions.
Now, if you subtract this person's figure from the total, and then divide the new total by 22, what do you get?
1449 - 874 = 575 /22 = 26.13
976 - 391 = 585 /22 = 26.59
506 - (-69) = 575 /22 = 26.13
299 - (-276) = 575 /22 = 26.13
450 - (-158) = 608 /22 = 27.64
598 - 23 = 575 /22 = 26.13
so what have we learned, that the wisdom of the crowd is no good, as previous draws do not influence future draws, thus all the numbers are guesses, and if you aggregate enough guesses, they tend towards 25, as 25 is the average value of the lottery balls.
If you look at it further, you see that in fact, this Tyler who found the technique of "writing the first number that comes into your head tricky" is more likely another plant, who perhaps destroys one random set of numbers and replaces it with the 9th ballot. In any case, numbers above 49 or negative are required in order to balance the average away from 25.
As long as Derren can convinvce the other 23, he gets to convince the public as the subjects' reactions are genuine, throw in a bit of fancy talk, such as "deep maths" and bob's your uncle, people get sucked in.
However, in the coin trick he showed up, I would expect that Derren's "team" would win on average 7 times to Andrew's 1.
The reasoning is as follows, remember that Andrew requires HHH, Derren requires THH.
Now consider the first three coin tosses, there is a one in eight chance that it is HHH, if it is, Andrew has won, if it is not this, then the coin must have come up with a T.
Now consider the three coin tosses directly after the T, if they are HHH, then Derren has won because the sequence has gone THHH, and thus the THH occured before the HHH. Therefore, once a T has been tossed, it is impossible for Andrew to win, because any HHH must directly follow a T, and Derren will win on the second H.
Therefore, Andrew needs to win before a T is tossed, i.e. in the first three tosses, giving him a 1 in 8 chance.
I'm not sure if this maths follows for when the sequence is different, but it makes logical sense that Derren's sequence should have as its last two tosses the first two tosses of Andrew's sequence.
In any case, we only saw the HHH version and for all we know, the stunt was filmed a few times until someone picked HHH or TTT as appropriate.
As for wisdom of crowds, if they were wiser, they wouldn't have predicted 63 as an average lottery number. I'm unsure as to how this could occur, and it hardly seems a foolproof system, in this example it could be conveniently switched to 36, but what if it had been 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 etc etc etc etc.
Furthermore, it seems to be that this "free writing" is just a way for people to shut their eyes and notice that Derren and "accomplices" are looking at the numbers been given, adding them up, comparing to the actual numbers and then using a plant to submit balancing numbers.
In this video here if you pause it at 3.09 you get a nice overhead shot of the numbers. The 9th person seems to have huge numbers, enough to send the predictions non-sensical. Only one person is making these large predictions.
Now, if you subtract this person's figure from the total, and then divide the new total by 22, what do you get?
1449 - 874 = 575 /22 = 26.13
976 - 391 = 585 /22 = 26.59
506 - (-69) = 575 /22 = 26.13
299 - (-276) = 575 /22 = 26.13
450 - (-158) = 608 /22 = 27.64
598 - 23 = 575 /22 = 26.13
so what have we learned, that the wisdom of the crowd is no good, as previous draws do not influence future draws, thus all the numbers are guesses, and if you aggregate enough guesses, they tend towards 25, as 25 is the average value of the lottery balls.
If you look at it further, you see that in fact, this Tyler who found the technique of "writing the first number that comes into your head tricky" is more likely another plant, who perhaps destroys one random set of numbers and replaces it with the 9th ballot. In any case, numbers above 49 or negative are required in order to balance the average away from 25.
As long as Derren can convinvce the other 23, he gets to convince the public as the subjects' reactions are genuine, throw in a bit of fancy talk, such as "deep maths" and bob's your uncle, people get sucked in.
mrclam
Giga Poster
Actually I know a thing or two about mathematics.. My job is 99.99% random numbers and math.
The coin toss stuff was real math. There are plenty of statistics and chance papers to look up which will explain the coin toss stuff (or just ask your math teacher).
The lottery numbers though is garbage, because you're not dealing with the same repeating chance.. Instead of a 1:2 chance you have a 1:14000000 chance (1 in 14 million)
Using his algorithm - if you pick random numbers between X and Y over multiple iterators, and average them.. you'll more often than not end up with the middle point between X and Y give or take a small error margin..
Using that system you'll never get the low or high numbers.. And will end up with a bell curve type of effect - where only the middle numbers in the range are picked.
But i'm sure his camerman just had Parkinsons and is the worst tv camerman in the known history of live tv.
The coin toss stuff was real math. There are plenty of statistics and chance papers to look up which will explain the coin toss stuff (or just ask your math teacher).
The lottery numbers though is garbage, because you're not dealing with the same repeating chance.. Instead of a 1:2 chance you have a 1:14000000 chance (1 in 14 million)
Using his algorithm - if you pick random numbers between X and Y over multiple iterators, and average them.. you'll more often than not end up with the middle point between X and Y give or take a small error margin..
Using that system you'll never get the low or high numbers.. And will end up with a bell curve type of effect - where only the middle numbers in the range are picked.
But i'm sure his camerman just had Parkinsons and is the worst tv camerman in the known history of live tv.
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
I remembered last night what Derren said in the original backwards advert.
"Events of MISDIRECTION".
I've been sitting here going duhduhduh what's the theme of the 4 events?
And he even told me.
Duh.
"Events of MISDIRECTION".
I've been sitting here going duhduhduh what's the theme of the 4 events?
And he even told me.
Duh.
Stone Cold
Mega Poster
Now I'm in accountancy mode as opposed to sleepy post-Live mode, let me clarify my earlier post.
Firstly, by "deep maths" I mean that the name itself is a load of rubbish. He might as well have called it Statistical High Integer Transformation Maths or, Cartesian Randomised Algorithm Processing maths. There is sound mathematics behind the coin toss, but it's not called deep maths, but hey, probability is such a dirty word for people like Derren Brown.
The second point to make is that the coin toss doesn't work because the different possible outcomes are small or large, but because of Derren's choice of outcome. (although doing this with lottery numbers would require a supercomputer because you would need literally billions of turns before Derre's advantage became clear. The coin having a 50:50 outcome means that the advantage builds up very quickly and is more potent.)
Derren's success is down to his choice of sequence, which is dependent on the challener's sequence and such that although it is as likely to come up as the challenger's sequence, it very probable to do so slightly before.
With the specific example shown in the program, the challenger picked HHH as his sequence, which probability dictates will only be tossed in sequence before THH one time in eight.
Had the challenger picked HHT, then there would have been a one in four chance this sequence was tossed before Derren's choice of THH. (The maths therefore does follow, but it is a slightly less of a tharashing for the challenger i.e, although Derren can always stack the odds in his favour, he cannot guarantee winning the game by (on average) seven wins to one (unless he can somehow manipulate the original choice of sequence made by the challenger as well)).
Therefore, my point about filming the coin stunt several was not to ensure Derren won but to ensure he won by a large margin so he didn't look "lucky", as had a challenger selected HHT, then it could have been the case that the coins ranmly favoured the challenger over such a small number of "games" (i.e. first to 10).
With regards to the lottery numbers, there are plenty of reasons whilst the toin coss is not even a relevant comparison. Firstly, each lottery ball drawn is affected by the previous one (i.e. once ball 42 is drawn, it cannot be drawn again) unlike coin tosses which are independent. Also, the lottery draws six balls and that's it, whereas the toin coss game will continue until there is a winner, therefore the "deep maths" used by Derren to legitimately win the coin toss game cannot be applied to the lottery. (Although it could be applied to a system that drew a number at random from 1 to 49 until a sequence of 6 numbers were drawn.)
But then, Derren Brown is all about misdirection, the coin toss was misdirection to fill an hour, he even said in the program as much that it was unrelated. Speaking of which, he seems to think that faking a lottery ticket was a solution he could have used. But it wasn't he said he would predict the lottery numbers, which is a completely different thing to faking a ticket. Of course, he faked a prediction using some trickery or other (likely a split screen, but it could have been something else like trick ping pong balls possibly).
Firstly, by "deep maths" I mean that the name itself is a load of rubbish. He might as well have called it Statistical High Integer Transformation Maths or, Cartesian Randomised Algorithm Processing maths. There is sound mathematics behind the coin toss, but it's not called deep maths, but hey, probability is such a dirty word for people like Derren Brown.
The second point to make is that the coin toss doesn't work because the different possible outcomes are small or large, but because of Derren's choice of outcome. (although doing this with lottery numbers would require a supercomputer because you would need literally billions of turns before Derre's advantage became clear. The coin having a 50:50 outcome means that the advantage builds up very quickly and is more potent.)
Derren's success is down to his choice of sequence, which is dependent on the challener's sequence and such that although it is as likely to come up as the challenger's sequence, it very probable to do so slightly before.
With the specific example shown in the program, the challenger picked HHH as his sequence, which probability dictates will only be tossed in sequence before THH one time in eight.
Had the challenger picked HHT, then there would have been a one in four chance this sequence was tossed before Derren's choice of THH. (The maths therefore does follow, but it is a slightly less of a tharashing for the challenger i.e, although Derren can always stack the odds in his favour, he cannot guarantee winning the game by (on average) seven wins to one (unless he can somehow manipulate the original choice of sequence made by the challenger as well)).
Therefore, my point about filming the coin stunt several was not to ensure Derren won but to ensure he won by a large margin so he didn't look "lucky", as had a challenger selected HHT, then it could have been the case that the coins ranmly favoured the challenger over such a small number of "games" (i.e. first to 10).
With regards to the lottery numbers, there are plenty of reasons whilst the toin coss is not even a relevant comparison. Firstly, each lottery ball drawn is affected by the previous one (i.e. once ball 42 is drawn, it cannot be drawn again) unlike coin tosses which are independent. Also, the lottery draws six balls and that's it, whereas the toin coss game will continue until there is a winner, therefore the "deep maths" used by Derren to legitimately win the coin toss game cannot be applied to the lottery. (Although it could be applied to a system that drew a number at random from 1 to 49 until a sequence of 6 numbers were drawn.)
But then, Derren Brown is all about misdirection, the coin toss was misdirection to fill an hour, he even said in the program as much that it was unrelated. Speaking of which, he seems to think that faking a lottery ticket was a solution he could have used. But it wasn't he said he would predict the lottery numbers, which is a completely different thing to faking a ticket. Of course, he faked a prediction using some trickery or other (likely a split screen, but it could have been something else like trick ping pong balls possibly).
I do not care how he does each trick and I like Derren Brown as an entertainer. *shrugs*
I don't want to know and I do not care how he did the lottery trick - that would spoil it for me.
I was entertained by a magic trick for about 5 minutes and I really enjoyed it as I watched it...then afterwards I stopped caring about it.
I don't want to know and I do not care how he did the lottery trick - that would spoil it for me.
I was entertained by a magic trick for about 5 minutes and I really enjoyed it as I watched it...then afterwards I stopped caring about it.
I think Ian has got it spot on. It was a simple magic trick. Nothing more than hundreds of stage magicians have done before (and will do again). Some kind of sleight of hand or getup with mirrors.
The clever thing is that Derren Brown took a simple trick and made millions of people interested in his new show. Simple trick, clever marketing.
The clever thing is that Derren Brown took a simple trick and made millions of people interested in his new show. Simple trick, clever marketing.
Ollie
CF Legend
This Fridays episode sounds interesting but they haven't said much about it. Although this small news section is interesting to read.
http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/blog/article/250712/
Also I doubt they'll hypnotise people as OfCom have very strict rules regarding hypnosis.
Still it'll sound interesting but the video that's going to stick everyone to their seats won't be till the end of the show so the first 45 minutes will be filled with junk. But afterwards people can phone in and tell everyone about their experiences. Although like people have guessed already they've said the event won't work on everyone.
And for those interested here's the rest of 'The Events' shows that he's doing the following weeks.
How to be a psychic spy:
Inspired by the CIA's top secret Star Gate project, Derren conducts a nationwide experiment in remote viewing. Do psychic powers really exist?
How to beat the Casino:
Derren attempts to beat the odds at roulette, but there is a twist. Someone in the UK is about to get a big surprise as, live on television, they become the unwitting accomplice in Derren's mission to take down a casino.
Full article can be found here:
http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/blog/article/250712/
Also I doubt they'll hypnotise people as OfCom have very strict rules regarding hypnosis.
Ofcom said:
Still it'll sound interesting but the video that's going to stick everyone to their seats won't be till the end of the show so the first 45 minutes will be filled with junk. But afterwards people can phone in and tell everyone about their experiences. Although like people have guessed already they've said the event won't work on everyone.
And for those interested here's the rest of 'The Events' shows that he's doing the following weeks.
How to be a psychic spy:
Inspired by the CIA's top secret Star Gate project, Derren conducts a nationwide experiment in remote viewing. Do psychic powers really exist?
How to beat the Casino:
Derren attempts to beat the odds at roulette, but there is a twist. Someone in the UK is about to get a big surprise as, live on television, they become the unwitting accomplice in Derren's mission to take down a casino.
Ollie
CF Legend
I got Derrens audio books for my iPod. They're actually very good and he reveals all the techniques he uses during his shows and encourages you to do it as he says it to prove it actually works.
I listened to the one last night that was all about your memory and how you can improve it to remember almost everything and hundreds of things without forgetting. I was amazed at how well it worked actually.
He started off by listing about 15 random unrelated objects and got you to write them down as he said them. Then he said to turn the paper over and write down as many as you could in order. I struggled badly and got about 3 as my short term memory is pretty crap. He then asked you to try and list them backwards where I only got one lol.
He then went on to say in a couple of minutes the technique he uses and how you can memorise a whole list just by memorising the first word. He then told you what to do and then to try it again.
I tried it again and instantly managed to list them all without even having to think which one was next. I was pretty shocked and to prove that he'd managed to help he asked me to write the list again in reverse which I managed to do with ease again.
After that he went on and discussed how you could develop it further and how to help remember things such as names, numbers and lists etc.
It's certainly worth listening to if you've got the chance as it's also very interesting as he tells you about the history of the techniques and how the brain works and remembers things etc.
I've got two more to listen to. One is about magic and the other is about hypnotism where he tells you how to do it safely and the techniques involved in that.
See that shows that he's a very clever person not doing some **** video editing to make it look like you've predicted the lottery numbers.
I listened to the one last night that was all about your memory and how you can improve it to remember almost everything and hundreds of things without forgetting. I was amazed at how well it worked actually.
He started off by listing about 15 random unrelated objects and got you to write them down as he said them. Then he said to turn the paper over and write down as many as you could in order. I struggled badly and got about 3 as my short term memory is pretty crap. He then asked you to try and list them backwards where I only got one lol.
He then went on to say in a couple of minutes the technique he uses and how you can memorise a whole list just by memorising the first word. He then told you what to do and then to try it again.
I tried it again and instantly managed to list them all without even having to think which one was next. I was pretty shocked and to prove that he'd managed to help he asked me to write the list again in reverse which I managed to do with ease again.
After that he went on and discussed how you could develop it further and how to help remember things such as names, numbers and lists etc.
It's certainly worth listening to if you've got the chance as it's also very interesting as he tells you about the history of the techniques and how the brain works and remembers things etc.
I've got two more to listen to. One is about magic and the other is about hypnotism where he tells you how to do it safely and the techniques involved in that.
See that shows that he's a very clever person not doing some **** video editing to make it look like you've predicted the lottery numbers.
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
I think this, like the lottery show, isn't going to be what he says it's going to be.
The series is called events of misdirection... after all, what he's misdirecting this time we'll see.
If it's anything like what that prune who bends spoons did that time, hundreds of people will phone in saying that it's worked.
Whilst nobody really knows how hypnosis works, Derren explains that it's more to do with subconsciously wanting to play along - not literally believing you're a chicken for a few moments. This is why some people are highly more susceptible than others. It relies on your ability to trust other people, or Derren in particular. I think a lot of people however would say "it wouldn't work on me I'd want to make it not work" but don't realise it's not that easy. It's a psychological response, probably a misfiring of a survival tactic, that makes this kind of thing work.
Still, I do not believe he will be preventing me from getting out of my seat tonight. But I don't doubt he could if I was with him, either.
The series is called events of misdirection... after all, what he's misdirecting this time we'll see.
If it's anything like what that prune who bends spoons did that time, hundreds of people will phone in saying that it's worked.
Whilst nobody really knows how hypnosis works, Derren explains that it's more to do with subconsciously wanting to play along - not literally believing you're a chicken for a few moments. This is why some people are highly more susceptible than others. It relies on your ability to trust other people, or Derren in particular. I think a lot of people however would say "it wouldn't work on me I'd want to make it not work" but don't realise it's not that easy. It's a psychological response, probably a misfiring of a survival tactic, that makes this kind of thing work.
Still, I do not believe he will be preventing me from getting out of my seat tonight. But I don't doubt he could if I was with him, either.