In Message-ID:<1203133165.303653@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Michael Ash <mike@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Is it actually reasonable to expect the presence
>of a time traveler not to alter the outcome of a lottery drawing? Lottery
>drawings are, or at leash should be, highly chaotic systems, in the sense
>of being highly sensitive to initial conditions.
<snip elucidation of the butterfly effect>
>Any thoughts on the above?
I am neither a scientist nor an economist. Take what follows
for what it's worth. (Hint: What did you pay for it?)
The butterfly effect takes time to propagate. If the
traveler arrives sufficiently near the time of the drawing and
sufficiently far from its location, he shouldn't affect it.
Of course, I've use those weasel words. Given the original
scenario (a few hours before and a few hundred miles away), I
wouldn't expect a change.
If this is a time-line traveler, though, I think something
else comes into play. The chance that the "known" numbers will
come up *may* be greater than chance, but they will certainly be
less than 1 just because there are so many "nearby" time-lines.
>It seems to me that a time traveler is going to have a better time in
>s****ts betting or the stock market. Both of these are chaotic to some
>extent but at least in the short term are based on more macroscopic
>effects. Small changes in the players' brains won't change the fact that
>team A's defense is helpless against team B's offense, or that company X
>is going to announce earnings 50% higher than predicted the next day.
For an extended visit, you're probably right. However,
except for the lottery, it would be hard to make a $65,000,000
swing in a short time. (S****ts-team betting is not legal in most
places, and huge wins may not be healthy. The s****ts betting that
is legal (e.g. horse racing) is pari-mutuel and the bets affect
the payout odds. The stock market is chaotic and may start
varying as soon as a difference shows up.)
--
Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" intergate "dot" com
Looking for a z/OS (IBM mainframe) systems programmer position
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