Rather that debate the probability of the two events being coupled
through random chance, why not assume the two events did not occur at
the same time by random change and explore the reason why they
occurred at the same time? Why not explore the probability that an
asteroid has rocks that orbit it as the system moves through space?
This planetary system would be invisible and not have any effect if
the main body passed far enough from the earth or another planet.
Suppose the meteor that hit Russia was in obit and its position at the
time the system approached the earth caused it to approach the earth
from a direction opposite to the direction the asteroid approached the
earth. Why not calculate the probability of this event since it makes
more sense than the present discussion?
Ed
On Feb 19, 2013, at 1:28 PM, James Bowery wrote:
Of course we're all familiar with the "clustering" phenomenon that
occurs when thousand immortal monkeys banging away on typewriters,
at some point during their "lifespan" type type out the complete
works of Shakespeare in the precise order that Shakespeare wrote them.
So now try to follow along carefully with my line of reasoning:
An actuary, being fully aware of such "clustering" proceeds to
purchase a thousand monkeys and place them in front of computer
keyboards (you will have a hard time getting your mitts on a
thousand working typewriters nowadays), and they proceed to type out
the complete works of Shakespeare in the precise order that
Shakespeare wrote them. The actuary cries "Eureka!" and runs to his
CTO proclaiming the need for a huge research program to get to the
bottom of this improbable event.
The CTO proceeds to fire the actuary. In the termination letter
written by the CTO to the actuary, which is the CTO more likely to
say:
1) "You are being terminated because your so-called 'Eureka!' event
demonstrates you have not understood clustering."
2) "You are being terminated because not only did you spend all that
time and money on getting a bunch of monkeys in front of word
processors, but your failure to understand that monkeys typing out
the complete works of Shakespeare in the order he wrote them bears
no reasonable relationship to an event that we might underwrite as
an insurance company."
?
On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Alexander Hollins <alexander.holl...@gmail.com
> wrote:
Are you familiar with "clustering"? just because a rare event
happens twice close together, doesn't change the rarity based on
previous data. You just happened to hit the probability twice.
On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 1:14 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Think about this like an actuary, folks:
When setting insurance premiums, one must have a model. If your
model says that an event should occur only less than once in a
million years and the event occurred a few days ago, you might think
your model needs revision. The question then becomes how much to
invest in revising that model? If the events modeled are of no
particular economic importance -- if the damages underwritten are
likely to be mundane in scale -- then one might not invest all that
much money in revising the model.
However, if the model is predicting events that are on the scale of
nuclear attack in terms of destructive potential -- or worse --
extinction events; one might want to invest substantial resources in
revising the model so that the probability of the observed events
aren't so wildly out of line with reality.
On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 1:43 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com>
wrote:
The odds of this coincidence are literally far less than one in a
million. The naive calculation is based on two like celestial
events that independently occur once in a hundred years occurring on
the same day:
1/(365*100)^2
= 1/1332250000
Note: that is one in a billion. Discount by a factor of a thousand
for whatever your argument is and you are still one in a million.
This is not a coincidence.
PS: The mass of the Russian meteor has been revised upward by a
factor of 1000.
On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 2:16 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I believe he's referring to the appearance of a glowing object
approaching from _behind_ the main mass that correlates in time and
direction to the ejection of fragments with its disappearance into
the main mass. Yes, we're talking delta-velocities that are outside
of plausible explanation by ballistic missiles or any other known
propulsion technology. Ignoring the out-going fragments, the most
plausible explanation I can come up with for this approach-from-
behind object is modification of the source footage. An optical
artifact doesn't cut it due to the time correlation with the
expulsion of fragments unless someone can come up with a optical
artifact that would also explain those fragments.
There are a few statistical anomalies surrounding the celestial
events -- which may be explained independently but taken as
independent events seems to multiply their probabilities towards zero:
1) Regardless of whether detection of asteroids has just recently
become advanced enough to detect those on the order of 50m passing
inside of geostationary orbit, we have the phenomenon of the first
public announcement of such an event (Asteroid 2012 DA14) making its
closest approach on Feb 15, 2012.
2) The shockwave from the Feb 15 Russian meteor was sufficient to
cause widespread physical damage in populated areas and such intense
shockwaves correlated with meteoric fireballs have not been reported
for decades.
3) The vectors of these two objects -- asteroid and large meteor --
appear statistically independent.
It is difficult to assign an independent probability to #1 since
we're potentially talking about a once-in-history phenomenon
relating not to the mere close-passage of a sizable asteroid -- but
rather to the phenomenon of public announcement.
It is easier to assign an independent probability to #2 since it is
hard for such a large shockwave to go unreported if the meteor
enters over land, and by taking into account the fraction of Earth's
surface that is land we can increase the expected frequency only a
few fold at best.
On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Edmund Storms
<stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
What is so unusual about this video? The meteor exploded, which sent
fragments in all directions, including straight ahead as the video
shows. As for shooting down an object slowing from 17000 mph in the
atmosphere, where is the common sense?
Ed
On Feb 17, 2013, at 7:17 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
octPHs9gcs&feature=player_embedded#t=0s
NASA failed to mention the surprising activity that seems to show
up in this Russian video, in slo-mo.
The video could have been altered - with the addition of a fast
moving object that seems to impact with the object to make it
explode (at about 27 seconds).
Since the original story of a missile shoot-down came from Russian
military, why not give it some credence?
Unless of course it can be shown that this video was altered.
NASA's blog states:
"Asteroid DA14's trajectory is in the opposite direction"
180 degrees is pretty far from 90 degrees.
What is your cite, Terry?
