Wolfire Games Forums

Brains are not calculators. Numbers are treated mentally much like everything else. For example, if you ask someone to pick a color, they are probably more likely to pick Red or Green than Fuchsia or Teal, because they are more prototypical colors. If you ask someone to think of a random number, they think of numbers that seem the most 'random'. Mathematically, that is nonsense, but intuitively numbers like '47' or '73' seem more random than '4' or '16' so they are probably more likely to get picked when asked for a 'random number'. There are many factors involved in this decision, so I can't presume to guess which numbers are the most or least likely to be picked, but if you conduct a survey of a million people, I am certain that there would be strong biases towards and against certain numbers.

People will basically pick numbers they've seen, heard or written not that often. It's a misinterpretation of the 'random' property.

Also, the number of odd numbers will be higher, the numbers will get picked more often towards the middle of your interval and you will get a lot of 'I don't know... Let's see..." intros to the picking action, which is basically the process of picking a non-random number by specifically chosing one and covering the silence with meaningless words.

There will also be a tendency towards prime numbers because a lot of people are aware of the concept and associate it with randomness for whatever reason.

And then there will be a lot of people that pick a number which isn't in the interval.

You don't believe it? Tell 20 people to pick a random number between 10 and 40, it'll already convince you.

_Writing down_ a random number on command is a whole other story, though...

I think the concept of randomness is purely hypothetical, it just appears to be there because of the way we look at events. <insert nonlinear meta-spacetime mumbo-jumbo here>

That may be so, David, but I still think it's ridiculous to believe that 47 is the number with something about it that makes people pick it over any other number. It's just ridiculous to me, and if I haven't already explained properly why I think it's ridiculous then I'm not going to.

Renegade_Turner should've wrote:That may be so, David, but I still think it's ridiculous to believe that 47 is a number with something about it that makes people pick it over any other number.

It's not the magic number, other numbers are also more likely to be picked, for the reason that David just explained. When I try to think of a random number, I usually override the normal "Think of a random number" and replace it with "Think of a random number, and repeat until you get one that's random enough" because anything like 66 or 3 or 90 or 76 doesn't seem very random, as either it's a number biased towards one end of the scale, in the case of 3, or has both digits too "Close" to each other (ie: Numbers like 66, 77, 34, 43, etc would probably be picked much less often when someone thinks of a "Random Number" because they don't seem random at all.).

Just my two cents.

I would write a response to that, but there doesn't really seem to be a point since we've both made our points. Let's just say we're all right.

oh i see why people dont like him now... hes not even posted anything and he has already started people fighting over his name, i think you are all retarded acualy, because you are fighhting over somthing so rediculous
some people say 47 when they are asked some people dont, case closed

if i was asked i would say 7 i donno why but thats just a number i like and see alot on the internet

Apparently 7 is a lucky number... Also, it is linked to hell. (7th layer of hell)
..

Strange, but true.

I'd probably choose 21. or 65.

v-nix wrote:i think you are all retarded acualy, because you are fighhting over somthing so rediculous

Don't even get me started on the many reasons to call you retarded..just I'd say it would be wise to learn how to spell simple words like "actually", "fighting", "something" and "ridiculous" before calling other people retarded.

i dont care about my spelling its the point im making that counts

v-nix wrote:i dont care about my spelling its the point im making that counts

I care about your spelling. Also, there is a difference between fighting and debating. Admittedly, there was a bit of "No you're wrong!!" going on, but for the most part we were actually making arguments.

Renegade_Turner wrote:I would write a response to that, but there doesn't really seem to be a point since we've both made our points. Let's just say we're all right.

Fine by me.

*reads posts further down*

Here we go again…

oh .......my bad,

BunnyWithStick wrote:

Renegade_Turner wrote:I would write a response to that, but there doesn't really seem to be a point since we've both made our points. Let's just say we're all right.

Fine by me.

*reads posts further down*

Here we go again…

Yeah, I kinda was wondering why, just when we resolved the matter between ourselves and said we'd respect each other's opinions, he decided to then call us retarded for arguing. He could have done so while we were actually arguing. Lol. Meh.

invertin wrote:Apparently 7 is a lucky number... Also, it is linked to hell. (7th layer of hell)
..

Strange, but true.

I'd probably choose 21. or 65.

I live above the 7th layer of hell ( Florida XD )

I really hate this discussion, and if it were up to the color thing i would choose beige. if up to the number thing i would choose 2.1479