World Cup
COMPUTER PREDICTS BRAZILIAN WORLD CUP WIN Ronald Hilton - 6/3/02
Mexican expert David Crow of the University of Texas writes: "My congratulations to Raśl Escalante and the other Mexican WAISERs for Mexico's well-deserved victory over Croatia, which goes a long way in overcoming doubts raised by its poor performance in qualifying play. Go Ratonzotes Verdes!" His expertise even extends to soccer. Why is the Mexican team called "Big green mice"? Let us see who is the better prophet, David or a computer:
Scientists and statisticians at the University of Ulster have conducted an extensive computer analysis of every match slated to take place during the World Cup over the next month and, after running the simulation 2,000 times, are predicting a Brazil-Italy final, with Brazil coming out on top. The second part of the experiment pitted five soccer-enthusiast professors against the computer who used their knowledge and expertise to predict that Argentina would win in a final against Italy. "The result of our research is a classic case of head versus heart. Number crunching against subjective judgment," says Dr. Peter O'Donoghue. "It will be interesting to see how the tournament pans out and whether the human brain or the computer is the best way of analyzing such unpredictable contests as a World Cup. In all
honesty, I think the simulation will be closest. Yesterday for the first time in my life I went to a betting shop and put £20 on a Brazil-Italy final." (BBC News 3 Jun 2002)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2018000/2018821.stm
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