The following is a link to a Veritasium video. It claims that when a statistically large number of people are asked to identify a random
integer between 1 and 100, their choices are anything but random.
Instead, the most popular choice is 69 followed by 37. Not only that,
but multiples of 2, 5 and 10 were chosen much less often, while prime
numbers were chosen much more often than random chance allows.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98>
The video goes on to provide a running histogram of 200,000 choices
made in a Reddit survey. It shows how the distribution remained
remarkably consistent over time.
These patterns suggest there is something that makes people choose,
and not choose, numbers not just non-randomly, but selectively,
without being aware of it.
The video suggests that most people "feel" prime numbers are more
random than non-prime numbers, perhaps because there is no exact
formula for calculating the nth prime number, and also perhaps because
the real world provides few representations of prime values greater
than 7.
So why should 69 and 37 be selected most often? 69 has some cultural associations. As for 37, the following offers a number of
suggestions:
<www.thirty-seven.org>
For those who might ask what this post has to do with evolution vs creationism, I would say it has about as much to do with it as do
posts about free will.
--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge
jillery wrote:
The following is a link to a Veritasium video. It claims that when a
statistically large number of people are asked to identify a random
integer between 1 and 100, their choices are anything but random.
Instead, the most popular choice is 69 followed by 37. Not only that,
but multiples of 2, 5 and 10 were chosen much less often, while prime
numbers were chosen much more often than random chance allows.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98>
The video goes on to provide a running histogram of 200,000 choices
made in a Reddit survey. It shows how the distribution remained
remarkably consistent over time.
These patterns suggest there is something that makes people choose,
and not choose, numbers not just non-randomly, but selectively,
without being aware of it.
The video suggests that most people "feel" prime numbers are more
random than non-prime numbers, perhaps because there is no exact
formula for calculating the nth prime number, and also perhaps because
the real world provides few representations of prime values greater
than 7.
So why should 69 and 37 be selected most often? 69 has some cultural
associations. As for 37, the following offers a number of
suggestions:
<www.thirty-seven.org>
For those who might ask what this post has to do with evolution vs
creationism, I would say it has about as much to do with it as do
posts about free will.
I would chose 47, as it is the funniest integer.
On 6/1/24 4:21 PM, jillery wrote:
The following is a link to a Veritasium video. It claims that when a
statistically large number of people are asked to identify a random
integer between 1 and 100, their choices are anything but random.
Instead, the most popular choice is 69 followed by 37. Not only that,
but multiples of 2, 5 and 10 were chosen much less often, while prime
numbers were chosen much more often than random chance allows.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98>
The video goes on to provide a running histogram of 200,000 choices
made in a Reddit survey. It shows how the distribution remained
remarkably consistent over time.
These patterns suggest there is something that makes people choose,
and not choose, numbers not just non-randomly, but selectively,
without being aware of it.
The video suggests that most people "feel" prime numbers are more
random than non-prime numbers, perhaps because there is no exact
formula for calculating the nth prime number, and also perhaps because
the real world provides few representations of prime values greater
than 7.
So why should 69 and 37 be selected most often? 69 has some cultural
associations. As for 37, the following offers a number of
suggestions:
<www.thirty-seven.org>
For those who might ask what this post has to do with evolution vs
creationism, I would say it has about as much to do with it as do
posts about free will.
--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge
I like the idea of of 37 and 73 being so popular just because they
contains no "rounded" digits like even's, 5's, or 10's. And no 1's or
9's which are too close to the 10's.
Because that very much makes sense in my mind, 37 is totally random and silly. It's sort of cute that so many human's brains might be thinking
in that same pattern without realizing it.
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