Marathon Monday
Today (4/21/08) was the 105th annual running of the Boston Marathon, America’s oldest and largest annual such event. 21,963 (fool)hardy souls ran the full 26 miles and 385 yards up and down hills and valleys, fighting warm weather (61 degrees) and a headwind (5 mph) but spurred on by the cheers of an estimated 1,000,000 admirers who lined the route from suburban Hopkinton to the finish line in downtown Boston. A good time was had by all (the fans, anyway), and it was historic stuff for track devotees, but what, you may ask, does it have to do with the Joy of Sox?
Only this – crowd emotions at most sporting events are typically split between two competing teams, the hometown fans cheering for their local favorites, opposed by supporters of the visiting team. The ratio between the two sides can vary anywhere from 50/50 at a typical High School football game to 95/5 at home games of wildly favored pro teams (like the Red Sox, where visiting fans would have hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to travel). And that’s been one explanation for the difficulty researchers have had in getting solid results with random number generators at sporting events: the emotional field of the audience is split, and high levels of coherence can’t be obtained because the competing vibes cancel each other out. So it would be nice to be able to take measurements at a sporting event where everyone is rooting for the same person or people. And that’s where the Marathon comes in.
That’s because marathon crowds everywhere, not just in Boston, are so uninhibitedly supportive of the runners. Their admiration, and bewilderment, is expressed by a torrent of cheers, whoops, and, today (courtesy of Saturn autos), cowbells for all. Even the slowpokes, the runners who have been reduced to a walk, or whose wobbles suggest that dropping out is imminent - they all get huge doses of fan support, as well as whatever invisible energy comes with that. So what would the RNG output be like in a setting where all the fans are “on”, all the time, and for the same cause? We’re about to find out, because today’s files are already en route to Scott the Stats Guy, who has completed his move to Florida and is once again ready to crunch some serious numbers for us.
At today’s race, I set up shop near the halfway point, where the leaders usually arrive in a pack of 10 or so, pursued by a steady trickle of dozens of high level runners, soon followed by a true flood of thousasnds of everyday runners that stretches for miles. But I didn’t pick just any spot – I chose a setting that is legendary for its powerful cheers. For I had plunked down my laptop by the main entrance to Wellesley College, an all-girls school that is almost as famous for its cheering prowess as for its academic rigor (and for an alumna who is favored to win the Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania tomorrow).
I was not disappointed. As the photos above and below show, it was possible to set up the equipment so that RNGs would be generated right in the thick of things. I didn’t cushion the computer on a foam pad this time, which is too bad – skeptics will say that the crowd noise was so loud that it might have shaken the computers and altered the data. The only reason I was able to survive the full 30 minute recording segment was because I had two very high quality foam earplugs stuck way up into my Eustachian tubes. Otherwise, my ears would still be ringing. I enjoyed the show, and felt the stirrings of a mild case of spring fever in the process. Plenty of witty signs, many with a similar theme: “Kiss me, I’m a senior”, “I’ve never been kissed by a runner”, “Quick kisses here”, and “Kiss me, girls. This is Wellesley”. Plenty of takers, too. So I know the runners got a good buzz from the Wellesley college co-eds. We’ll find out soon enough whether the computer did, too.
Only this – crowd emotions at most sporting events are typically split between two competing teams, the hometown fans cheering for their local favorites, opposed by supporters of the visiting team. The ratio between the two sides can vary anywhere from 50/50 at a typical High School football game to 95/5 at home games of wildly favored pro teams (like the Red Sox, where visiting fans would have hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to travel). And that’s been one explanation for the difficulty researchers have had in getting solid results with random number generators at sporting events: the emotional field of the audience is split, and high levels of coherence can’t be obtained because the competing vibes cancel each other out. So it would be nice to be able to take measurements at a sporting event where everyone is rooting for the same person or people. And that’s where the Marathon comes in.
That’s because marathon crowds everywhere, not just in Boston, are so uninhibitedly supportive of the runners. Their admiration, and bewilderment, is expressed by a torrent of cheers, whoops, and, today (courtesy of Saturn autos), cowbells for all. Even the slowpokes, the runners who have been reduced to a walk, or whose wobbles suggest that dropping out is imminent - they all get huge doses of fan support, as well as whatever invisible energy comes with that. So what would the RNG output be like in a setting where all the fans are “on”, all the time, and for the same cause? We’re about to find out, because today’s files are already en route to Scott the Stats Guy, who has completed his move to Florida and is once again ready to crunch some serious numbers for us.
At today’s race, I set up shop near the halfway point, where the leaders usually arrive in a pack of 10 or so, pursued by a steady trickle of dozens of high level runners, soon followed by a true flood of thousasnds of everyday runners that stretches for miles. But I didn’t pick just any spot – I chose a setting that is legendary for its powerful cheers. For I had plunked down my laptop by the main entrance to Wellesley College, an all-girls school that is almost as famous for its cheering prowess as for its academic rigor (and for an alumna who is favored to win the Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania tomorrow).
I was not disappointed. As the photos above and below show, it was possible to set up the equipment so that RNGs would be generated right in the thick of things. I didn’t cushion the computer on a foam pad this time, which is too bad – skeptics will say that the crowd noise was so loud that it might have shaken the computers and altered the data. The only reason I was able to survive the full 30 minute recording segment was because I had two very high quality foam earplugs stuck way up into my Eustachian tubes. Otherwise, my ears would still be ringing. I enjoyed the show, and felt the stirrings of a mild case of spring fever in the process. Plenty of witty signs, many with a similar theme: “Kiss me, I’m a senior”, “I’ve never been kissed by a runner”, “Quick kisses here”, and “Kiss me, girls. This is Wellesley”. Plenty of takers, too. So I know the runners got a good buzz from the Wellesley college co-eds. We’ll find out soon enough whether the computer did, too.
posted by Rick Leskowitz,MD at 7:46 PM
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