The mathematician has spotted a recurring pattern of behaviour she plans to use to her advantage on the BBC competition series
Celebrity Traitors star Professor Hannah Fry has been doing her homework ahead of stepping foot in the castle.
The mathematician and broadcaster is one of 21 famous faces taking part in the second season of the star-studded programme, competing for a prize pot of up to £100,000 for their chosen charity.
Just like the much-loved civilian version of the competition, the celebrities will play the game as either Traitors or Faithfuls, a role decided by host Claudia Winkleman at the show’s start. The Traitors must remain undetected and oust as many Faithfuls as possible over the course of the series, while the Faithfuls must try and expose them or risk losing their share of the prize pot.
Last year’s celebrity season was won by comedian Alan Carr who played as a Traitor and remained completely undetected by his fellow stars. Among the line-up this year is Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock, comedian Joe Lycett and award-winning singer James Blunt.
Incoming player Hannah has been crunching the numbers ahead of the game commencing and she admitted to finding some “statistically significant patterns” she can try and use to her advantage.
“Have I gone back through the data of all the previous games and tried to find statistically significant patterns? Yes! Are any of these going to help me? Honestly, who knows?!” she told the BBC.
Elaborating on what she had discovered, she revealed: “There is a pattern in the way that Traitors behave. For example, Traitors often do a burn vote in the first few episodes when they’re settling in. By that I mean they just vote for somebody that nobody else has voted for.
“Cat [Burns] last year was a really good example of this, but across the board, the only problem with picking up on those signals is that the Faithfuls are such an absolute mess. They are so all over the place that it’s really hard to pick out what the signal is. That’s just one example of a little bit of maths that I’ve got in my back pocket.”
She continued: “I am using the same bit of math that Alan Turing used to crack the Enigma machine. Whether it’s going to work or not, honestly, your guess is as good as mine! I’ve got spreadsheets coming out of my eyeballs. I close my eyes and it’s like there are numbers tattooed on the inside of my eyelids at the moment for how much I’ve been looking at them.”
Whether Hannah’s research could clinch her the win remains to be seen. The new series commences on October 1 at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
A new series of The Celebrity Traitors begins on October 1 at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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