Conspiracists' Fuzzy Math

Came across this "fact" while perusing this site:

PROBABILITY OF DRILL AND TERROR ATTACK COINCIDING BY CHANCE (10yr mean):
One chance in 3,715,592,613,265,750,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

www.infowars.com...

Where did this number come from? I'd really like to see the math...

Here are my calculations:

The age of the universe is approximately 13,700,000,000 years (source: Wikipedia) so that means about 5,003,925,000,000 days old. So the random chance of two events occurring on the same day over the entire history of the universe is only one in 25,039,265,405,625,000,000,000,000! That's ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE less than what this states as fact. Given that the city of London didn't exist until around 61 A.D. (source: Wikipedia). The chance of two random events in the history of London should be (1944 * 365) ^ 2 or one in 503,475,393,600.

Islamic terrorism against the West started with 9/11 so let's say it's existed for 4 years...terror drills against such terrorism must have started at the same time, since there'd be little use for them beforehand so the real probability (assuming there's only ONE terror attack and only ONE terror drill over this period) is (4 * 365) ^ 2 which is one in 2,131,600.

I think one in 2,131,600 is the absolute most generous number you can give to the conspiracists on this...but I bet there were FAR more terror drills than terror attacks, plus there were MORE THAN ONE terror attacks...so even this number is way too high.


[edit on 8/20/2005 by djohnsto77]

[edit on 8/20/2005 by djohnsto77]

Well, they actually explain their methodology in that article. Hint: The article begins with the methodology!

In case you missed it, I'll post it:

Probability of 7/7 Drill and Attack Coinciding

LU Stations: 274

Probability of one attack by hour (5yr mean): One chance in 9,474,920

Open Hours per Day: 19

Probability of 3 station terror hit (5yr mean):
One chance in 850,602,500,906,920,000,000

Open Days a Year: 364

Mean Sample frequent (yrs) 5 Probability of one attack by hour (10yr mean):
One chance in 18,949,840

Mean Sample frequent (yrs) 10 Probability of 3 station terror hit (10yr mean):
One chance in 6,804,820,007,255,360,000,000

Same Time 3

LU Stations: 274

Probability of drill on 1 stations per hour:
One chance in 817,342

Open Hours per Day: 19

Probability of drill on 3 stations per hour:
One chance in 546,023,643,432,766,000

Open Days a Year: 157

Same Time 3

PROBABILITY OF DRILL AND TERROR ATTACK COINCIDING BY CHANCE (10yr mean):
One chance in 3,715,592,613,265,750,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Now you just need someone familiar with statistics to confirm the running tally of numbers.

[edit on 20-8-2005 by Jamuhn]

From what I see they're basically saying there were drills in each station hit (and no others) at the exact hour the attacks occured (and no others)...I've seen no proof of that from even the most conspiratorial news sites other than this statistics equation...

Originally posted by Jamuhn
Now you just need someone familiar with statistics to confirm the running tally of numbers.

I agree with that, I got a good grade in college statistics but promptly forgot it all afterwards

We know the terror drill was real. We know they were running the drill at the exact same stations the bombings actually occurred.

www.whatreallyhappened.com...

But, who knows what really happened.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
From what I see they're basically saying there were drills in each station hit (and no others) at the exact hour the attacks occured (and no others)...I've seen no proof of that from even the most conspiratorial news sites other than this statistics equation...

Originally posted by Jamuhn
Now you just need someone familiar with statistics to confirm the running tally of numbers.

I agree with that, I got a good grade in college statistics but promptly forgot it all afterwards

What do you mean no proof. It was admitted shortly after the attacks by the people running the drill. One of the top officials said it "gave him chills down his spine". I've seen the video. It's somewhere on the prisonplanet site but you can find it yourself.

There are lots of problems with this calculation.

First, it assumes that it's been confirmed that the exercise did involve all three underground stations, and that isn't true. The thought is based on this Peter Power quote:

we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning...
www.prisonplanet.com...

Seems compelling, right? But when pressed by the interviewer Power went on to say "almost precisely" -- not the same. He also said that:

we based on a scenario of simultaneous attacks on a underground and mainline station
www.whatreallyhappened.com...

But there were no mainline stations hit. Did he mean they'd specified an attack on the tube and mainline station at Kings Cross, say? I don't know, but his comment doesn't match exactly with what happened. And we need more than the word of someone with a vested interest in saying how smart he is before it counts as "proof".

Problem #2: the number of stations. The calculation points out that there are 274 Underground stations and assumes they're all equally likely to be hit, but this is unlikely. If you want to cause maximum chaos you'd hit the central lines, as they did, and if Power planned terrorists coming in on a mainline station then fanning out, there are many less of these (well under 50, I think).

Problem #3: matching the stations. What counts as a "hit", here? The first bomb exploded in the tunnel between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, for instance ( en.wikipedia.org... ). Some media reports described it as a bomb at Liverpool street ( news.bbc.co.uk... ), a Government statement said it happened at Aldgate ( www.direct.gov.uk... ).

Another bomb exploded about half way between Russell Square and Kings Cross ( news.bbc.co.uk... ). Again, Power is getting two chances at a hit (so he could name any two of four Central London stations and say he got it right).

Problem #4: time. The article claims that because stations are open for 19 hours a day, that the chances of an attack within a particular hour are 1/19. That's not true, though -- these attacks are aimed to cause maximum chaos, so they aren't likely to happen at 8pm, say. I'd say between 8 and 9am is the obvious time for an attack, it's when I'd have predicted one, and there's no surprise Power matched it at all.

Except, of course, that maybe he didn't. If I remember correctly, the official thought at the time Power spoke is that one tube explosion occurred well after 9am. His meeting started very soon after (9:30?) and the bus bomb (that he didn't predict) happened afterwards, so he might have been impressed by the coincidence, and been reporting that, but later it came out that all the tube bombs went off around 8:50am. In which case the match wasn't as great as he thought.

Problem #5: date. The article similarly wants us to assume the probability of this particular day being selected was 1 in 364, but that's equally false. From the terrorists side, they'd want to attack on a working day (one in 260), and if there's a signifiance to Thursdays then the odds full further (1 in 52). And from Peter Power's side, the article assumes he only did this once. What if Power runs one of these exercises a week? Now the odds are 1 in 5. What if there are other companies and Government departments doing the same thing? Then the odds of one drill matching up with the real thing are lower still. Maybe, just maybe, this isn't quite as improbable an event as the calculation's author wants us to believe...?

[edit on 21-8-2005 by ashmok]

It's amazing the lengths people will go to in order to keep the illusion tangible for themselves. All the fretting about mind control and fluoride in the water is bollocks for one simple reason: The herd will herd itself...always has, always will.

I'm sure even adding in army intel drills for a 9-11 scenario way back in 1976, NORAD drills on 9-11, FEMA arriving in NYC on 9-10, zero FBI & BATF agents turning up for work on the day of the OC bombing...adding all this into the equation, folks would still find some way of rationalizing all this down to a probability of say, hmmm...1 in 5 or something like that. And they say that the oh-so-gleefully-labeled "conspiracy theorists" are crazy.

Oceania is at war with Terrorism. Oceania has always been at war with Terrorism. Go back to sleep...go back to sleeeeeeeep...

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. I had won the victory over myself. I loved Big Brother."

that website presenting the probability of a drill and a terror attack occuring in the same place at the same time didnt make any god dam sense.

"Probability of one attack by hour (5yr mean): One chance in 9,474,920"

"Probability of 3 station terror hit (5yr mean):
One chance in 850,602,500,906,920,000,000"

How did they come up with those figures? did they do a study to conclude the probability of a terror attack. or did they just pull them out of the air?
also, it says "probability of 3 station terror hit..." did they mean "probability of 3 terror attacks at three stations occuring together"? again, this website didnt make any sense. were they generating this figure under the assumption each terror attack was independant or dependant?

The website would actually make sense if:

-it presented the probabilities like this:

Probability of a drill occuring in a station A: .01

probability of a terror attack occuring in a station A: .002

probability of a terror attack and a drill occuring in the same station A:
.01 * .002 = .00002

And if they explained how they got the figures, in this example the figures were .01 and .002


this would be the correct way to make the website so it actually made sense.

THe website smells like bullsh*t

[edit on 25-8-2005 by bob2000]

Originally posted by bob2000
"Probability of one attack by hour (5yr mean): One chance in 9,474,920"

"Probability of 3 station terror hit (5yr mean):
One chance in 850,602,500,906,920,000,000"

How did they come up with those figures?

That's another problem with the article. It's not just the probability of a drill occurring on the same day as a terrorist attack. It's actually the probability of a terrorist attack occurring at that particular hour on that particular day at those particular stations, AND a drill occurring at the same time.

Anyway, the math works like this.

Station open hours per day = 19
Open days per year = 364
Stations = 274

Probability of an attack occurring at a particular station within a specified hour over a 5 year period = 19 x 364 x 5 x 274 = 1 in 9,474,920

Therefore probability of an attack occurring at 3 specified stations over a 5 year period = 9,474,920 x 9,474,920 x 9,474,920 = 1 in 850,602,500,906,920,000,000

As discussed earlier, that's garbage. Attacks are likely to be targeted, not spread randomly over all stations, days, and open hours, and if we take that into account then the probability looks rather different.

Likely hours of attack = 1, the 8 to 9 rush hour
Likely days of attack in 1 year = 52 if we're aiming at Thursdays
Likely stations of attack = perhaps 30 in Central London
Likely period of attack = 3 years max, not the 5 they specify

Probability of an attack on one station at a particular hour is now 1 x 52 x 30 x 3 = 1 in 4,680

Probability of 3 attacks at named stations does NOT mean multiplying that figure by itself three times, because terrorist attacks are likely to be coordinated - that's the point of them. If one attack occurs, then others are likely at the same time, so all we need to multiply by is the number of remaining stations. This gives us...

4,680 x 29 x 28 = 1 in 3,800,160

...and in fact that could be even less if we decided it's likely that the attacks wouldn't occur at adjacent stations...

4,680 x 27 x 25 = 1 in 3,159,000

Much lower than the original estimate, although the whole point is this probability doesn't matter anyway. What we want to know is the probability of a drill occurring on the same day as an attack, not both occurring specifically on the 7th.