Baseball Season Already Mathematically Predicted
It’s the beginning of the baseball season, and no matter who you’re supporting (Go Blue Jays!) it’s time to make your yearly predictions. And though each of us have a different method to work out who is going to win what and who’ll take bottom place, I doubt yours will be as involved as Bruce Bukiet’s.
Of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Bruce Bukiet has for the past seven seasons used a mathematical model to calculate who will win, who will do well, and who will fail miserably.
The computer model predicts the probability of how a team will do against any given team, based on who is hitting, who has the home field advantage, who’s on the bench, and who is the starting pitcher and relievers.
Created by an avid New York Mets fan, the model has a pretty decent accuracy rate. According to its creator the model has more often than not picked correctly rather than incorrectly. Last year’s predictions saw him pick the Yankees, Indians, Angels, Mets and Padres as clear Division winners; he was right about the Indians and Angels.
“These results give a guide of how teams ought to perform during the season,” he said. “But there are so many unknowns, especially concerning trades, injuries and how rookies will peform that cannot be taken into account.”
Nevertheless, the predictions for this season see the American League pretty much down to a contest between the Yankees, Sox, Tigers and Angels (what about my Blue Jays???). However the National League is not so clear cut.
“The National League should see much tighter races, with the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves winning the East and the wild card respectively, while in the Central and West Divisions, only the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants have no real shot of making it to the postseason,” Bukiet said.
The complete list of predictions is below, but no matter what the predictions say, the game isn’t over until the fat lady has sung!
* AL East: Yankees – 98; Red Sox – 98; Blue Jays – 86; Rays – 75; Orioles – 63
* AL Central: Tigers – 96; Indians – 87; White Sox – 79; Twins – 74; Royals – 63
* AL West: Angels – 92; Mariners – 78; A’s – 75; Rangers – 70
* NL East: Mets – 92; Braves – 89; Phillies – 84; Nationals – 73; Marlins – 70
* NL Central: Brewers – 84; Cubs – 83; Reds – 81; Cardinals – 80; Astros – 79; Pirates – 71
* NL West: Rockies – 85; Padres – 85; Diamondbacks – 83; Dodgers – 82; Giants – 75
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The book “A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels’ Impact Event”
does seem a little lost in time and space. In this case, Hermanns et
al. (2006) stated of the landslide deposits, which contain frictionite:
“Pieces of wood recovered from a reconnaissance gallery
in the Tauferberg gave a conventional 14C age of 8710+/-150
years BP (Heuberger, 1966), and an AMS 14C age of 8705+/-
55 years BP (Ivy-Ochs et al., 1998),”
If the above radiocarbon dates are calibrated to calendar years,
they indicate the Kofels event occurred about 9700 BP calendar
years. This is approximately 7000 years before the event was
recorded and approximately 4600 years before they argue that
this so-called “impact” occurred.
“A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels’ Impact Event” tries to
explain this by claiming that the so-called “Köfels’ Impact Event”,
which is allegedly recorded in a tablet dated about 700 BC (2700 BP)
and occurred 3123 BC (5123 BP), somehow contaminated the
plant material to produce the older date. However, they fail to
provide a convincing scientific mechanism to explain how this
happened.
Research of by Ivy-Ochs et al. (1998) substantiates the validity of
the radiocarbon dates and refutes the claims that they are somehow
contaminated. Cosmogenic isotope dating by Ivy-Ochs et al. (1998)
yielded dates of 8880+/-490, 10,070+/-520, and 10,630+/-570
calendar years BP. These dates lie very close to the calibrated
radiocarbon date of about 9,700 BP. Considering that the younger
cosmogenic isotope date could easily represent post-landslide
erosion of the rock surface, which was dated, they confirm that the
Köfels landslide occurred thousand of years before either the
Sumerian tablet was argued to have been made, or the when the
so-called “impact” was suppose to have occurred. The Köfels
landslide is much too old to have any connection with any of them.
References Cited:
Hermanns, R.., L.. Blikra, M. Naumann, B. Nilsen, K. Panthi, D.
Stromeyer, O. Longva, 2006, Examples of multiple rock-slope
collapses from Köfels (Ötz valley, Austria) and western Norway.
Engineering Geology. vol. 83, no. 1-3, pp. 94-108.”
Heuberger, H., 1966, Gletschergeschichtliche Untersuchungen in
den Zentralalpen zwischen Sellrain-und Otztal. Wissenschaftliche
Alpenvereinshefte. no. 20.
Ivy-Ochs, S., H. Heuberger, P. W. Kubik, H. Kerschner, G. Bonani,
M. Frank, and C. Schluchter, 1998, The age of the Köfels event.
Relative, 14C and cosmogenic isotope dating of an early Holocene
landslide in the central Alps (Tyrol, Austria). Zeitschrift fur
Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie. vol. 34, pp. 57–70.
Also, there is a discussion of the evidence for the Köfels landslide
being an meteorite / comet impact in:
Deutsch, A., C. Koeberl, J.D. Blum, B.M. French, B.P. Glass, R.
Grieve, P. Horn, E.K. Jessberger, G. Kurat, W.U. Reimold, J.
Smit, D. stoffler, and S.R. Taylor, 1994, The impact-flood
connection: Does it exist? Terra Nova. vol. 6, pp. 644-650.
They found a complete lack of any credible evidence for an
impact having created the Köfels landslide. The alleged “shock
quartz” found by earlier investigators was discredited as neither
being “shock quartz” nor formed by an impact. How the pseudo-
“shocked quartz was created is discussed by:
Leroux, H., and J.-C. Doukhan, 1993, Dynamic deformation of
quartz in the landslide of Koefels, Austria. European Journal
of Mineralogy. vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 893-902.
The melted rock associated with this landslide was identified
as “frictionite” created by frictional heat generated by the landslide,
the largest in Europe, as discussed by:
Erismann, T. H., 1977, Der bimsstein von Köfels impaktit
oder friktionit?. Material und Technik. vol. 5, pp. 190–196.
Erismann, T. H., H. Heuberger, and E. Preuss, 1977, Der
Bimsstein von Köfels (Tirol), ein Bergsturz-“Friktionit.
Mineralogy and Petrology. vol. 24, no. 1-2, pp. 67-119.
and
Masch, L., H. R. Wenk, and E. Preuss, 1985. Electron microscopy
study of hyalomylonites-evidence for frictional melting in landslides.
Tectonophysics. vol. 115, pp. 131–160.
These above studies clearly demonstrate that the estimated kinetic
energy of the rock mass displaced by the landslide would have
generated the heat necessary to melt the rock and form the “pumice”,
which they called “frictionite” (also known as pseudotachylyte /
hyalomylonite).
Hyalomylonite / frictionite has also been found in megalandslides
of Peru and Nepal as described by:
Heuberger, H., L. Masch, E. Preuss, and A. Schrocker, 1984,
Quaternary Landslides and Rock Fusion in Central Nepal and in
the Tyrolean Alps. Mountain Research and Developments. vol. 4,
no. 4, pp. 345-362.
Weidinger, J. T., J.-M. Schramm, and R. Surenian, 1996, On
preparatory causal factors, initiating the prehistoric Tsergo Ri
landslide (Langthang Himal, Nepal). Tectonophysics. vol. 260,
no. 1-3, pp. 95-107.
and
Legros, F., J.-M. Cantagrel, and B. Devouard, 2000, Pseudotachylyte
(Frictionite) at the Base of the Arequipa Volcanic Landslide Deposit
(Peru): Implications for Emplacement Mechanisms. The Journal of
Geology. vol. 108, no. 5, pp. 601–611.
In case of the Köfels landslide, Sorenson et al. (2003) concluded:
“Analysis of the Köfels sturzstrom seems to indicate that most
aspects can be explained without recourse to exotic emplacement
scenarios. The bulk of the material resembles the debris from an
energetic but conventional landslide.”
Reference Cited
Sorensen, S.-A., and Berthold Bauer, 2003, On the dynamics of the
Köfels sturzstrom. Geomorphology, vol. 54, no. 1-2, pp. 11-19.
Go look at “Cause effect models of large mass movements” at
http://info.tuwien.ac.at/geophysik/research/landslides/1997_pr01/structure/koefels.htm
There is an extensive discussion of the Köfels landslide and the
formation of frictionite in:
Theodor H. Erismann & Gerhard Abele, 2001, Dynamics of Rockslides
and Rockfalls, Springer-Verlag
Yours,
Douglas