From: CountYourEuros! [CYE-announce__at__AndreasKrueger__dot__de] Sent: Montag, 4. März 2002 02:15 Subject: CYE: Invitation to scientific Euro-Project (mail 1 of 3) infomail 1 (v1.24, 3.3.2002) Hello ! You are invited to my SCIENTIFIC project: "CountYourEuros!" My apologies for disturbance, but I need your support... In ~2 weeks, you can download a program and PARTICIPATE as a local observer and reporter of the probably largest statistical experiment that was ever made: The diffusion of 50 billion EUROpean coins between 12 countries. They have national backsides, so for every coin you know where it came from. This is what I want to know! With your cooperation, we will try to analyze and model that scientifically. It's a DIFFUSION process; diffusion happens in many very different dynamical models, for example in the spreading of rumours, pollutants or diseases - and it's quite a challenging mathematical problem. My PROGRAM shows you all 96 coins and so it helps to identify and input your purse, perhaps once a month... Sometimes, you connect it over the Internet to my server to transfer your data, like many others in Europe. The official alpha version is going to be launched in mid-March, but you can visit it already on the website. Moreover, you could be a BETA tester now and try out the beta version to find bugs and still influence a little the program development. If you are interested, visit my INFOPAGES www.AndreasKrueger.de/euro There, you can get acquainted to the program layout, criticise it and read about some more backgrounds. Many thanks in advance! Yours sincerely, Andreas Krueger (-: Member #1 from 33604, Germany, a city with 100-500,000 people ---------------------- Sorry for bugging you: ---------------------- This is the first of three mails about the "CountYourEuros!" project: 1 "Announcement" (this) 2 "Launch of the alpha version" (the START, in 2 weeks!) 3 "First results of the data analysis" (When?) If you DO NOT want any more mails, please tell me at: cye-stop__at__AndreasKrueger__dot__de If you accidentally got this several times, please tell me which addresses to remove. ---------------------------- Some Background information: ---------------------------- You have interesting data: Your purse (wallet, portemonnaie) contains a selection of 96 different coins that are circulating in your area. If you tell me about your personal share of this "information packets", after combining many of these data packets from enough people (and over a longer time), we can calculate probabilities and distributions - and thus we can try to model the Euro diffusion scientifically to learn more about the trading process and the growing European interconnections. Download a small program Once the alpha version is launched, you download it to your computer, unzip it to any folder and just start the EXE whenever you want to input your purse. You can always remove it completely by just deleting that folder. Included are the coin pictures Pictures of ALL 108 European coin sides are included in the download. Enjoy watching them. Some are beautiful, actually - I like the Finish 1 Euro coin most. When will it be in my purse? LinuxWinMac It is programmed in C++ using the Qt libraries KDE is build on. So besides the Windows program, there will be Linux and Macintosh versions - no need for you to use Windows. Time: 1 session 2 minutes One session of inputting ~ 10 coins takes little more than a minute. So you will not waste lots of time with my program! Time: once every month At the moment it looks as if the diffusion process is quite slow, so one session per month might be enough. This will change when the summer holidays begin - but YOU can always choose yourself how often and when you tell me about your coins. Anonymity - your informational selfdetermination To participate, you must answer three questions: country, postal code (at least the first 2 digits) and how big your city is (bigger cities might have an earlier equilibrium). I don't need more information about your person, so you can stay anonymous throughout this project if you wish to. Every other data you input voluntarily (eMail address, text messages to me, etc.) will be kept 100% confidential! The data you upload will be stored with a MEMBERNUMBER and the scientists who analyze the data will not know more about you than that number, your location and how you use the program. Your membernumber is your "identity" in this project - to keep your name anonymous. Spread the word Of course, your own input will be more valuable if more people participate in this project, because then the analysis can return sharper results. So tell people! But how do such news spread? Here, a second function of the membernumber is thought to shed light on this interesting question in itself: By telling your friends your membernumber when recommending CYE, at a later stage you will be able to see how far YOUR influence spread over Europe: 1 recommends to 2; 2 recommends to 7 and 15; 7 recommends to 29, 31 and 35; and so on. So 35 is in the "downline" of 7, 2 and 1. You live in Ireland? Your small- world network of acquaintances might persuade a person in Greece to participate in this project... What is your benefit? Hmmm... difficult question for me. Apart from enabling you to watch the diffusion process first-handedly, I can hope to offer to you: * some basic statistical knowledge for your every day life * using my program, you will quickly learn to distinguish the coins from different European countries. * Europe is getting its shape (at least in money) why not participate in some transnational experiences? Anyway, let me be honest: Without you, the whole project doesn't make sense. I do need your support - and every now and then 2 minutes of your time. If you have ideas what else I could offer you, please tell me :-) Scientific gibberish ... What's diffusion? Chambers Pocket Dictionary (1992) says: "diffuse": 1 to spread or send out in all directions; widely spread, not concentrated 2 (of a style of writing or speaking) using too many words; not concise "diffusion": 1 the act of diffusing or state of being diffused. 2 (physics) the mixing together of gases and liquids in contact with each other. So while the style of my eMail hopefully is not "diffuse", you can help this information to "diffuse" in Europe, by sending this eMail to your friends. Some other associations: * The obviously simple question is one of these fascinating easy-to-understand-but-difficult-to-solve problems that massive collaboration and computers might help us to clear up a little. To develop better tools and practice for more important challenges, perhaps? * It is a very large STATISTICAL experiment; soon, I can't be sure anymore, that a specific coin in my purse is from Germany, there will be only PROBABILITIES left to talk about. * MICROscopically, it's a "CONTACT PROCESS" of two people exchanging coins; but how does the emergent process develop MACROscopically? * What we are going to collect together is a powerful dataset that might stimulate to MODEL monetary communications adequately. Collaboration There are numerous interesting aspects to study, so if you wish to collaborate scientifically, or in promotion, programming or translating the site, program and these texts into the 12(?) languages, please join our helpers-list. The dawn of the net As a member of the CYE project, you will experience an aspect of the ongoing "dawn of the net" - the non-local collaboration of many individuals who share their distributed knowledge. It's only another beginning of many alike projects of these times... Me Andreas Krueger, physics department, University of Bielefeld I am about to finish my diploma in mathematical physics, for which I programmed a simulation in C++ to study the continuum percolation threshold of the first 10 dimensions. Recently, I just wanted to learn Qt, a GUI library - but that exercise quickly grew to this fully sized scientific research plan - challenging, fascinating, full of insights! CYE is my first distributed project - and together we can learn not only about the Euro diffusion, but also a lot about this ever-growing mycelium we call the Internet! click here: www.AndreasKrueger.de/euro ---------------------- Sorry for bugging you: ---------------------- This is the first of three mails about the "CountYourEuros!" project: 1 "Announcement" (this) 2 "Launch of the alpha version" (the START, in 2 weeks!) 3 "First results of the data analysis" (When?) If you DO NOT want any more mails, please tell me at: cye-stop__at__AndreasKrueger__dot__de If you accidentally got this several times, please tell me which addresses to remove from my list.