El increíble caso de la página que leía mentes

El ESP experiment de Clifford Pickover es ya una página mítica y bastante antigua de Internet.

El tema es sencillo: haces click en uno de los tres ojos que aparecen y verás ante ti seis cartas. Ahora tienes que elegir una diciendo cuál es en voz alta, y pinchas en uno de los ojos. El programa habrá quitado tu carta de entre las cinco que aparecen ahora. 98% de aciertos. Se supone que es un experimento paranormal. ¿Cómo lo hace? Algunas explicaciones que dan los sorprendidos participantes:

1.-The ESP experiment "worked", i.e. the web site appeared to correctly determine the playing card I selected. Knowing that you have written a book on time travel, I suspect that the original tarot card selection is a ruse, and that I in fact randomly selected a playing card, a selection that you had 5/6 probability of guessing wrong. In other words, you have discovered a limited (but real) mechanism of modifying past events .

My suspicion is that "originally" the experiment failed, but with each subsequent failure you were able to modify my previous experiences until, after a few iterations, you were successful.
Can you modify "physical" past events, or is your method restricted to thoughts and perceptions?

("sabiendo que has escrito un libro sobre viajes en el tiempo (...) sospecho que has descubierto un mecanismo limitado pero real para modificar los eventos pasados")

2.-Dear Dr Pickover, I am writing in response to your amazing esp experiment. Since having seen it last night, the world has become a much more interesting place. The solution to your experiment, whether simple or so advanced, that a mere person such as myself will never explain, has intrigued me all the same. Like everone else, I have some theories. Whether right or wrong here they are.

1. You are an Alien. 2. You are the most amazing software writer on this planet. 3. Like everything else in this universe history is repeating itself. 4. My thoughts are creating my reality.

Thank you for your amazing insight. It must be amazing being you. Brett K.. Melbourne Australia.

("Tengo varias teorías: 1.- eres un Alien; 2.- eres el mejor programador del planeta; 3.- como lo demás en el universo, la historia se está repitiendo; 4.- mis pensamientos están creando mi realidad)

3.-I am quite impressed, Mr. Pickover. I am quite sure that the other explanations for why your little ESP program works are totally incorrect, however, I am at a total loss, especially since I did the best I could to generate random numbers. I couldn't find any dice handy, so I used the Time of Day clock on my computer, and found its remander when divided by 3 for the first number; took out the first business card that came to hand and took the first phone number on there modulo 6, and then located a calculator and had it generate a pseudo-random number which I then did modulo 6. I did the little experiment 3 times, and your program "got" it all times. And, no, I did not say the name of the card aloud or stare at it or anything like that; it has nothing to do with what side of the side of the screen I clicked on. As I said before, I am quite impressed. I do not at this point know how to download and disassemble Java code, unfortunately, or maybe I could figure out how you did it. (Assuming you wrote this in Java.)

(Este monta la de Dios para intentar que su elección sea lo más aleatoria posible... y el programa sigue acertando)

4.-THAT SHIT IS PRETTY NEAT DONT KNOW HOW YOU DO IT BUT ITS COOL

("ESA MIERDA ES COJONUDA NO SÉ COMO LO HACES PERO ES LA HOSTIA")

¿Algún lumbreras en la sala?