Revisiting the Copernicus Death Pool

In June of 2003 I finished a book called Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe by Richard J Gott. My favorite chapter of the book talked about how you can predict how long things will last using the Copernican Principle, which is basically “We are not special.” If you assume that your point of observation is not a special one, then according to Gott you can determine how long something else will last within a certain range of time. He cites examples like the Berlin Wall and the space program. You take a point of observation (now), assume it probably isn’t special. Special in this case is defined as a point in the subject’s lifespan that is not at the very end or the very begining.

My idea was to take the opposite of this and choose 50 celebrities, assume my point of observation wasn’t special for 98% of them. Statistically, since I picked 50 celebrities my point of observation should have been special for one of them. The experiment only has 2 months left and so far no one on the list has died.

The only ones left on the list are
Sigourney Weaver – 07/15/04
Kathy Bates – 07/25/04
Christopher Walken – 09/02/04
John Cleese – 09/27/04

If they pass away before their dates, then my experiment was a success.

Note: I don’t want to see any of these people go.