I've been interested in the Burning Man event since first
learning of it years ago. I haven't been able to attend, but
perhaps someday. An email note from Yoav Zouker inspired me
to look at the GCP data over the time we have been
collecting data, during the most intense day, the Saturday
of the burning. Here is the essential part of Yoav's note:
My email is to recommend to you and I base this on 40,000 test
subjects.... that you try and use the EGG or any similar project to
measure anomlies, and see what happens to the people attending the
Burning Man Festival in Nevada Desert each year. If concert halls and
world events can casue dramatic shifts, i have spoken to many people
about this and they agree, there is no place to test such things as
in Burning man Festival.
If you are not familiar with this, please check
www.burningman.com (i am not working with them, i just
attend, and it's a non-profit festival as well)
There is something unexplained and magical that happens to the
30-50,000 + people that come to the event. Channels and
waves are so open that it almost seems that with everyone in one clear
line of positive, constructive energy, we all can connect and
achieve things that seem almost impossible.
To describe the festival is like to 'describe color to a blind
person' and so I can only suggest you take an interest maybe in
seeing what results you get from placing a measurement device such as
the EGG in a place like Burning man. It is a festival of one week
where art meets science and spirituality, a city is erected and
destroyed in one week leaving no sign. No money is allowed, only
trading of goods (food, gifts, arts) no trash can be found on the
ground anywhere, there is no death, theft, rape or anything that you
would find in many similar festivals... it changed my life (at the
risk of sounding culitsh, which it is not in any way)
But the final product of what happens in this week, is far beyond
words to describe. The site is vague because they don't want just
anyone coming, the place is filled with incredible, mind opening
experiences and maybe its location in the desert also signifies
something. It is attended by scientists, artists and leading figure
in every area of the world, giving lectures, talking, connecting and
explaining, not to mention the event itself is compared by
none in terms of visual stimulation, lights and art and ideas all over.
I learned that the main event is on the Saturday before
Labor Day. The data from this date for 1999 to 2006 was
downloaded, and converted to Z-scores. The 8 years of scores
were then averaged, using the Stouffer Z method, and the
result is plotted below. This striking curve shows a highly
significant departure from expectation, with Z = 3.060,
which has p = 0.001, or about 1000 to 1 odds of being just a
chance fluctuation. The result is driven by two of the 8
years having a very strong effect (1999 and 2004) with the
rest having modest positive or negative trends.
