I went straight to 64 because it's 2^6, and I like powers of 2.

Callum

Yeah, I've noticed this before with different things. As long as the number of posibilities equals the number of attemps, the percentage of it happeneing approaches 1/e as both numbers increase. So 1 million being a large number is very close to 1/e

Thanks by the way, that helps.

-d

Puzzle significant others unite!

Folded slip of paper, asked my wife, 68!

86, after careful considering some options (84, 68, 86) I could choose from

Zero is even. Interestingly, as far as I have recognised, nobody has chosen something with zero so far. My wife - not much puzzle minded - has chosen an unexpected number as well - 62- and no zero digit.

Apparently zero isn't "random enough" for anyone to include it.


By this rationale, I think people would have chosen 68 more consistently if the question was phrased "choose a number from 50 to 100" rather than "choose a number between 50 and 100", as the language might subtly influence the thinking process - just a hypothesis, but would be an interesting psychology experiment to try out with statistics on two larger population samples.

Fascinating information!

But what about those whose mind is so badly in denial that they
still insist to choose numbers which are not between 50 and 100?

I am still going for 37.




Pantazis

It's not regarded as even in roulette and I thought there was some debate. Wiki states it is positive but also says it is divisible by 2 which doesn't make any sense to me. Everything is technically divisible by 2.

Regarding Kelvin's point about lotteries. I assume most people won't pick a sequence of high (>31 and out of birthday range) consecutive numbers since to many they appear to be unlikely to come up. However there will be some with the same thoughts as myself and I don't want to share with them either. So I have to change the numbers slightly but not in a predictable way. So I usually have 5 consecutive high numbers plus one randomly picked number >31. Just my luck that I'll probably share with 20 lucky dippers.

Hey, that's my strategy too! Just to illustrate the point that finding the least popular combination is very difficult when everyone else is trying to do the same thing.

Well, casinos want to make money so they make up rules. But I never knew there was some debate about the parity of zero until today. But after reading something about it, I know that the concept of zero was introduced later than the concept of even/odd. So it's quite understandable that someone has confusions.

Some kids don't even think zero is a number. I remember reading that in some civilization, one is not considered a number (only plural things are numbers?).

"00" isn't a number but American Roulette has that too. I wouldn't use Roulette as a source of mathematical truth.

Also, don't forget that we're talking about zero as a digit in this case, as in 60 and 80, not as a number. Clearly, 60 and 80 are both even numbers.

Since people here enjoyed their video about the 3x3, here is numberphiles video about the "even-ness" of zero:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t1TC-5OLdM

Of course not but my point is that it's not as natural to think of it as even (edit) as it would be for 6 for example.

Zero *isn't* positive (it's neutral in that respect), but it is definitely even.

Sorry, typo. Meant to say even.

ERRRH. Brandon. After 1 hour of thorough reading and thinking I close that tab and find myself in this forum again. Like riped out of a dream. Now I remember how I got there!
THAT WAS FASCINATING.

Thank you though for the great article. Now back to what I was actually reading here.... Oh yes, the numger.

I chose 62. I guess my thought was about: 6 is first after 5 and thus the "first" digit I was allowed to chose as first. Then I went up from 60, choosing the first second digit allowed, but... ignoring 0. Who knows why. Yes I do know that 60 is an even number. And even the digit 0 itself. Still that's what I think I recall doing. Or what my intution was doing.

0 probably just seems to... abstract and ... unfulfilling. ??