The math behind Paul the Octopus

He had a remarkable run of predictions during the FIFA tournament

But there is also math to back him up

“Queen Mary, University of London professors -- and soccer fans -- Javier López Peña and Hugo Touchette collected ball-passing data from each World Cup team and used graph theory to analyze each team's style of play.”

“The networks show Spanish players make a lot of passes -- almost 40 percent more than Germany and twice as many as the Dutch. López Peña explains the passes are well-distributed among all the players, especially those playing at mid-field. The stats bear this out: David Villa, the tournament's highest goal scorer, has received an average of 37 passes per game, more than any other forward from any team, López Peña says.”

Picture credit Wikipedia

Comments

[Rogbot]

Roger Cohen had a piece on Paul in the NY Times in part on the more serious issue of confusing correlation with causation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/opinion/13iht-edcohen.html

One quote Americans may relate to:
According to the S.B.I., if a team from the old National Football League won the Super Bowl, typically played in late January, the stock market would go up for the rest of the year. From 1967 (the first Super Bowl) through 1997, it was uncannily accurate, correctly predicting the broad market trend for 28 of the 31 years. But after 1997, the S.B.I. slumped and was 0 for 4 in the following four years.