About this experiment

What this site is

The grand non-linear time experiment is an interactive research toy inspired by classic ESP card tests (including the Zener-style symbols familiar from pop culture). Each visitor can complete blocks of ten quick symbol guesses. After every pick, the site may or may not reveal whether you were right — that visibility is randomized.

We compare accuracy on rounds where feedback was shown to accuracy on blind rounds within the same session. When enough responses accumulate worldwide, we plan to publish pooled findings. Until then, you can still view your own session report and explore aggregate tallies on the leaderboard.

For the full experimental design, statistical definitions, and known limitations, see the methodology below.

Who runs it

This project is created and maintained by John Mulhausen. It is an independent side project — not affiliated with a university lab, not endorsed by Sony Pictures or Ghostbusters, and not a clinical or medical study.

Questions about the site, data handling, or press inquiries are welcome — see contact below.

What we do and do not claim

We do collect anonymous per-test logs (target symbol, your pick, correctness, and whether feedback was shown) so we can compute session-level and global statistics. We treat this as open, good-faith data gathering with transparent methods.

We do not claim that any single session proves extrasensory perception, precognition, or that you personally can “see the future.” A ten-test block is far too small to draw scientific conclusions about an individual. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; this site is a playful invitation to participate in a larger dataset, not a peer-reviewed publication.

The provocative framing on the home page is intentional storytelling — it asks an interesting “what if” about feedback timing. The actual analysis is descriptive statistics on randomized feedback visibility, compared to a 20% guessing baseline for five symbols.

How to participate

1. Open the home page and tap Start tests.
2. Complete ten symbol picks (no sign-in required).
3. Unlock your personal report and optionally share public or private links.
4. Return later with a private “save for later” link to log additional ten-test blocks on the same session.

Privacy details — including what we store, what we omit, and how ads or analytics may load — are on the privacy page.

Methodology

This section documents how trials are run, how metrics are computed, and where the design falls short of a formal laboratory study — so you can interpret your results and our eventual pooled findings responsibly.

Background: Zener-style cards

Zener cards (circle, cross, waves, square, star) were used in mid‑20th‑century parapsychology research, notably by J. B. Rhine and colleagues at Duke University, to test claims of extrasensory perception under controlled guessing conditions. With five equally likely symbols, random guessing yields a 20% expected hit rate per trial.

This site uses the same five-symbol vocabulary for familiarity and simplicity. It is a modern, browser-based homage — not a reproduction of Rhine’s laboratory protocol. Useful background reading:

• Zener cards (Wikipedia)
• J. B. Rhine (Wikipedia)
• Parapsychology — historical context and mainstream skepticism (Wikipedia)

Trial procedure

1. When you tap Start tests, the site creates an anonymous session ID (and an internal resume secret for private continue links).
2. On each of 10 tests in a block, the target symbol is drawn uniformly at random from the five Zener symbols using crypto.getRandomValues in your browser the moment you tap a card, then saved to the server together with your pick.
3. You select one of five face-up cards. Correctness is determined immediately.
4. Independently, the site flips a fair coin to decide whether you will see feedback (correct/incorrect reveal) or enter a short blind pause with no reveal.
5. Each trial row — target, pick, correctness, feedback visibility — is written to the database when storage is configured.

Blocks finalize every 10 logged picks. You may append more blocks later via a private continue URL; lifetime metrics always use every pick in that session.

Primary comparison: shown vs hidden feedback

The core within-session comparison splits your tests into two arms:

• Shown-feedback tests — you saw whether you were right or wrong before the next pick.
• Hidden-feedback tests — you did not see the outcome; you only advanced after a brief pause.

We report accuracy in each arm and the difference (shown minus hidden). If seeing results somehow correlated with better guessing — beyond what blind rounds show — that gap is what the home-page narrative explores. This is a descriptive split, not a claim that feedback “causes” precognition.

Why 20% is the chance baseline

Each trial draws one target uniformly from five symbols. If you guessed at random with no information, you would expect about one correct answer in five — 20%. Session reports compare your shown-feedback accuracy to that baseline and compute an exact one-sided binomial tail probability: the probability of getting your observed number of correct answers (or more) on shown-feedback tests alone, assuming independent 20% trials.

Important scope notes:

• The p-value is computed only on the shown-feedback subset, not on hidden rounds or the full session total.
• With only a handful of shown-feedback tests in a single 10-test block, the p-value is a coarse read — see the hints on your results panel.
• We do not apply multiple-comparison correction across sessions or participants in the live UI; treat exploratory hits as hypothesis-generating, not definitive proof.

Sample size and the 1,000,000-response milestone

A single 10-test block randomizes feedback visibility roughly fifty-fifty, so each arm often contains only about five tests. That is enough for personal curiosity, not for stable population inference.

Public, experiment-wide conclusions stay embargoed until 1,000,000 logged responses accumulate in the shared dataset. The milestone bar on the home and results pages tracks progress toward that threshold. The intent is to avoid over-interpreting noise from early, small samples while still letting individuals explore their own data immediately.

Limitations and honesty checklist

• Self-selected participants — visitors opt in; there is no random population sampling.
• Browser-only environment — distractions, tab switching, and device differences are uncontrolled.
• No preregistration — analysis choices are documented here but were not locked in a formal registry before launch.
• Resume sessions — motivated users can log many blocks; leaderboard ranking uses cumulative session stats, which may differ from strict independent-subject designs.
• Not medical or diagnostic — do not use this site for health, safety, or financial decisions.

We publish methods openly so you can judge for yourself. If you spot a bug in logging or metrics, please contact us.

Contact

John Mulhausen — independent creator of the grand non-linear time experiment. Message via LinkedIn.

This is for publisher and site questions. Completing a test run still does not require an account, email address, or any contact information from you.

What to write about

• Questions about the methodology or how metrics are calculated
• Privacy, data retention, or ads/analytics on the privacy page
• Bug reports (missing trials, broken resume links, leaderboard discrepancies)
• Press, collaboration, or accessibility feedback

We cannot look up or restore a session without your private continue link — sessions are anonymous by design. Public /results/… URLs show aggregates only and do not expose resume tokens.

Response time

This is a small side project. LinkedIn messages are read as time allows; there is no guaranteed support SLA.