Melania Trump: Astrophysicist calculates there was one in 87 billion chance speech was not plagiaris

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Radio Australia

Melania Trump: Astrophysicist calculates there was one in 87 billion chance speech was not plagiarised

Updated 20 July 2016, 14:40 AEST

So, how likely is it that Melania Trump copied Michelle Obama?



An astrophysicist has used the power of mathematics to prove Melania Trump's speech was plagiarised from First Lady Michelle Obama.

While Twitter and Facebook went into meltdown over the similarities between Melania Trump's Republican convention speech and Mrs Obama's 2008 Democratic convention speech, Bob Rutledge busily calculated the probability that Donald Trump's wife had not plagiarised it.

He then took to Facebook to share his calculations. He considered the argument that there are a limited number of words in the English language

"Let's forget the fact that having the same thematic thrust between Melania Trump's passage and Michelle Obama's passage feels too coincidental," the Montreal-based professor said.

Read more: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2016-07-20/melania-trump-astrophysicist-calculates-there-was-one-in-87-billion-chance-speech-was-not-plagiarise/1600390

[63splitwindow]

1. Repug official reaction to this...

AND this just seems somehow relevant...

[Tab]

2. Shouldn't it be a 1 in 87 billion that it WAS plagarized?

Otherwise what they're say it there's an overshelming chance that it wasn't (meaning it was) which is not the message I think they want to send out.

[63splitwindow]

3. No. If there is only a 1 in 87 billion chance it wasn't plagiarized then it almost certainly WAS. nt

[pokerfan]

4. Yep, in other words...

he's 99.9999999988% positive that it was plagiarism.

[Angel Martin]

8. same logic here ?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02920493

[gd770226]

5. I disagree with how he calculated this

I disagree with how he went about calculating this.

First, he is assuming that these 14 phrases can be used interchangeably in any order, and that just isn't the case. You can't just take these 14 phrases and put them in any order and have them be valid sentences or sentences that make any sense. These aren't lottery balls that are coming out of a machine where the order does not matter.

Second, to me it really comes down to three practically whole sentences that were lifted from the original speech. To break that down into 14 phrases is way to many. I could see maybe breaking it down in half as many as he did. And you would still have the first issue. I mean you really can't take part of the second half of the lifted text and put it with the first part and have it make any sense whatsoever.

To me it doesn't make sense to calculate it the way he did.

[Igel]

6. Some of the First Lady's "original phrases"

include things like "your word is your bond". Or "work hard for what you want."

Somehow, I'm pretty sure I knew these phrases when I was growing up. Which means Michelle wasn't Obama yet, and when she was prepping for kinder.

Truly, truly precocious production of prolific and profound platitudes.

(Overlapping themes make it clear that some of the possible choices are ruled out. "Live free or die," for example, or "Close the refrigerator door".)

I wonder if anybody found out if this sequence or theme was used prior to Mrs. Obama's.

But the stats say what we want them to say, so that's that.

[63splitwindow]

7. The combination of words and sequence are enough evidence ofplagiarism for me in this instance.

You? This statistical analysis was done by someone with too much time on their hands.

Not that it is any big deal vis-vis Melania. It is, however, indicative of a sloppily run campaign which does, IMHO, bear on Don the Con's appropriateness to be President, which I view as zero.

[olddad56]

9. what about Melania's claims that she re-wrote the speech herself? ..

Will her husband now refer to her an "Ol' lying Melanie'?

[StraightRazor]

10. Just seeing the words "Melania Trump & Astrophysicist' in the same sentence...

made me click on this thread.