Coincidence

[Laurens]

In the 1999 film The Matrix, Neo's passport expiry date is 11 Sept 01.

Of course this is seized upon by conspiracy nuts the world over as evidence of an inside job.

The coincidence does seem pretty staggering (we are after all not able to understand probability that well), I was just wondering if there are any good explanations of this particular coincidence out there?

If not how would you go about working out the probability of that particular date appearing in a film prior to the momentous event by chance?

(Although the other two dates suggest there was something important to whoever made Neo's passport, about the month September and the year ending in 1, so the selection probably wasn't entirely random)

I guess whatever the probability, it is still more likely than a film predicting a future event.

So, discuss coincidence and our inability to comprehend it...

 

[scalyblue]

In the 1999 film The Matrix, Neo's passport expiry date is 11 Sept 01.

Of course this is seized upon by conspiracy nuts the world over as evidence of an inside job.

The coincidence does seem pretty staggering (we are after all not able to understand probability that well), I was just wondering if there are any good explanations of this particular coincidence out there?

If not how would you go about working out the probability of that particular date appearing in a film prior to the momentous event by chance?

(Although the other two dates suggest there was something important to whoever made Neo's passport, about the month September and the year ending in 1, so the selection probably wasn't entirely random)

I guess whatever the probability, it is still more likely than a film predicting a future event.

So, discuss coincidence and our inability to comprehend it...

Well all the 1's are simple, Neo is the One. The movie is set in "1999" so having a passport expiring in 2001 was perfectly reasonable. As for september? that/s a 1/12 chance of picking september; not only that but one of the directors wives was born in september so that might have been a shout out.

Coincidence is just that...humans are alawys trying to find patterns, even where there are no patterns to find.

 

[bluejatheist]

Another coincidence; The two teenagers who perpetrated the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999 considered the idea of hijacking an aircraft and crashing it in New York City. The birthday of Dylan Klebold, one of the two, was on September 11.

Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981, April 20, 1999) and Dylan Bennet Klebold (September 11, 1981, April 20, 1999) were American high school seniors who committed the Columbine High School massacre.

Journals and videos
Harris and Klebold both began keeping journals of their progress soon after their arrests. The pair documented their arsenal with video tapes that were kept secret.[4][15]
Journal entries reveal that the pair had an elaborate plan for a major bombing rivaling the Oklahoma City bombing. The entries contained blurbs about ways to escape to Mexico, hijacking an aircraft at Denver International Airport and crashing into a building in New York City, as well as details about the attacks.

(Wikipedia)

 

[devilsadvocate]

How many films have been made, let's say between 1995 and 2000? How many dates of relatively close future appear on those films all counted?

Still, it seems quite a big coincidence. I like scalyblue's explanation.

 

[Laurens]

How many films have been made, let's say between 1995 and 2000? How many dates of relatively close future appear on those films all counted?

Still, it seems quite a big coincidence. I like scalyblue's explanation.

I guess you could get an estimate for the number of films released in a year using IMDb and total them up, I'm not sure how you'd get the number of dates without sitting through all of them...

 

[scalyblue]

How many films have been made, let's say between 1995 and 2000? How many dates of relatively close future appear on those films all counted?

Still, it seems quite a big coincidence. I like scalyblue's explanation.

I guess you could get an estimate for the number of films released in a year using IMDb and total them up, I'm not sure how you'd get the number of dates without sitting through all of them...

There is a 1/365 chance of pulling up 9/11. That's easy. 2011 is also not far off, it's a futuristic date if you're in the 80's and 90's...lotsa 1's.

This number BS is used all the time in movies though. One bullet left. One in a million. The Ace...that sorta thing..

Ever wonder why in final fantasy there's a spell called level 4 death? that's because the word for death and the word for four sound the same in japanese. It's a pun!

 

[Dean]

If they're going to assume that as evidence for 9/11 conspiracy, then what about September 11[sup]th[/sup] 1973 ... I don't know if that has ever been hooted about by conspiracy-theorists the world over (perhaps it has) ... but that seems to be a more relevant and more 'staggering' coincidence.

In either case, it doesn't really mean much, other than prove the point that human minds, including my own, can find patters where there aren't any, as scalyblue said ...

 

[malicious_bloke]

More to the point, if you are taking extreme caution to keep your massive conspiracy under wraps...why would you put clues in movies and potentially risk exposing your entire plot?

It makes no sense whatsoever

 

[Visaki]

More to the point, if you are taking extreme caution to keep your massive conspiracy under wraps...why would you put clues in movies and potentially risk exposing your entire plot?

It makes no sense whatsoever

Most conspiracy theorys don't. I call it the "totally idiotic conspirasists" hypotheses. The basic premise is that some of the theorys about 9/11 would point to once conclusion and that is that the planners of the conspiracy are idiots. For example: Flying an old fighter or a cruise missile into Pentagon and then calling it a 757 thinking no one would notice the difference? Only an idiot would do that. Betting the whole plan of demolishing WTC 7 on the chance that debri from the towers would hit #7 and they could blame that for the destruction? Only an idiot. Thinking that using a nuclear device or a orbital infrared deathray to demolish a building in one of the densest populated places on Earth and think that no one would notice? Idiots again.

To be honest I could plan a better conspiracy than what most of these theorys describe.

 

[televator]

Okay so Keanu Reeves is a card carrying Commie Reptilian member of the Illuminati then right? I wonder how much fluoridated water he drank before turning.

 

[Leçi]

also he's immortal

 

[televator]

..........Oh, my...I was right. Of course I'm right, but I did not know for sure if the conspiracy nuts actually ran with a Keanu conspiracy. :lol: I'm fugging dying of laughter! Immortal?! Fuck me, that's some sky high bull shit.

 

[Visaki]

He's not the only one:

 

[Leçi]

Is it coincidence hollywood stars also appear to be immortal?

 

[37551]

There is a 1/365 chance of pulling up 9/11. That's easy. 2011 is also not far off, it's a futuristic date if you're in the 80's and 90's...lotsa 1's.

This number BS is used all the time in movies though. One bullet left. One in a million. The Ace...that sorta thing..

Technically 1 is a more frequently occurring digit, according to Benford's Law. Not to imply that they're not being silly for dramatic effect, naturally.

Time for guesstimating! Let's say that there were about 2000 movies released between 1995 and 2000. Let's say that every movie shows ten future date randomly 1-10 years in the future. Tell me if I'm making arithmetic errors on top of my horrendous guesstimating, but I'm getting about 200 movies with dates in 2001? That would mean about 1 movie with the exact date 9/11/2001 shown on screen? Well guesstimating is pointless, but hopefully somebody sort of understands the odds a little better given the sheer mass of movies out there. Still, I guess the odds of it showing up in a more well known film(particularly one dealing so heavy with conspiracy) is a bit low. However, we shouldn't limit ourselves to only movies when calculating the odds since if it had shown up in a book or video game or any other media they'd be making just as big of a deal over it.

also he's immortal

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the image initially created in the spirit of "Oh ha ha look guys I found this old dude who looks just like Keanu, let's pretend they're the same person lol"

 

[ChiMike815]

I'm not a mathematician or statistician, but something I was wondering for date odds....

Ignoring leap years, I know the chance of getting any single random date is 1/365.

But, how would the probability and outcome be affected if you chose months first?
Say, instead of rolling one giant 365-sided die, you first rolled d12 to pick the month, then d/28/30/31 to pick the day in that month.
Would the odds of getting any particular day be the same, or would you start to get some kind of bell curve?

 

[37551]

I'm not a mathematician or statistician, but something I was wondering for date odds....

Ignoring leap years, I know the chance of getting any single random date is 1/365.

But, how would the probability and outcome be affected if you chose months first?
Say, instead of rolling one giant 365-sided die, you first rolled d12 to pick the month, then d/28/30/31 to pick the day in that month.
Would the odds of getting any particular day be the same, or would you start to get some kind of bell curve?

Since combined odds are multiplied, no. For instance the combined odds of getting two "tails" in a row would be (1/2)*(1/2) = 1/4.

In the same way:
Odds of getting a particular month: 1/12
Odds of getting a particular day: 12/365.25 ~= 1/30.44

Combined odds of getting a particular day: (1/12)*(12/365.25) = 1/365.25

What you may be thinking of is the gambler's fallacy, or the human tendency to believe in combined odds even after individual events have passed. For instance, believing that a "tales" is more likely after you've already gotten 5 "heads" in a row.

 

[ChiMike815]

Ah, ok, that does help me understand it.

What I think I'm getting mixed up with is trying to figure it relative to die rolling.

Like, for example, going back to my D&D playing days I remember that infamous bell curve graph.
The way I remember it, rolling 3d6 to generate a number from 3-18 does not give you the same odds as rolling a single die with the numbers 3-18 on it.
If I remember it correctly, on a single die with 3-18 all numbers have a 1/16 chance of being rolled. But in a 3d6 grouping, different numbers have a higher chance of being rolled because there are more combinations of dice that can add up to that number.

I take it randomly generating a date by those two die rolls (1d12 + 1d28/30/31) doesn't work quite the same as that?