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The first formal prediction for the EGG project was made by
RDN, in 1998-08-08, while traveling in Halifax. It concerned the
Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania, on
1998-08-07 at 07:35 UTC. Upon my return home, prior to examining data, I
made the specific predictions described below. These terrorist attacks
exemplify a tearing of the social fabric that would shock a global
consciousness temporarily. For this particular event, we had only
the general outline for predictions: a period of time, say 10 minutes,
surrounding the point event, and a period, say a few hours,
following the event during which the world becomes conscious of
what has happened.
An exploratory analysis based on 15-minute data segments from three
eggs looked at the event-period from 07:15 to 07:45, and a three-hour
consciousness-spreading period from 07:15 to 10:00. The associated
probabilities indicate significant deviations for both time-periods.
At that time we did not have sophisticated processing capabilities, but
a hand calculation could be made using the automatically generated
Z-scores for 15-minute blocks. It indicated significant deviations in
both the short period defined for the event: Chi-square 18.039,
9 df, p=0.035, and for the aftermath, inclusive of the event:
Chi-square 69.536, 36 df, p=0.00066.
With more sophisticated analytical tools available, it was possible to
examine the data in more detail. It should be noted that the network
was apparently fragile, so that there are many periods where the eggs
were not all running, and the block Z-scores were based on contributions
during some intervals from only one or two
of the eggs. Nevertheless, the original calculations
were confirmed, and the following graphical representation of the
analysis shows the striking accumulation of positive deviations in the
chisquare across the three-hour period following the bombing.
It goes without saying that this remarkable result was exciting, and we
took it as encouragement to go on with the EGG project, full speed
ahead.
An additional perspective has just become available, in May, 2001. John
Walker has created a "clone" database using pseudorandom numbers. The
following figure shows the Embassy data together with the corresponding
pseudo data. This is (in May 2001) a first draft, and there are minor
differences that I don't yet understand between the calculations for
the Eggsummary table used for the data above, and this figure which is
calculated diredtly from the database.
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