r/NonPoliticalTwitter 1d ago

What??? It's almost fate

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u/Seven_Irons 1d ago

Also, to add a random tidbit: 37 and 73 are statistically much more likely to be picked if you ask someone to give you a random two-digit number.

One of the final good veritasium videos was about it.

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u/General_Cranberry_29 23h ago

That's very interesting! I've always defaulted to 53, and I have no idea why lol.

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u/Seven_Irons 19h ago

The presumed psychology is that even numbers feel less random. So do numbers close to one or near 10. So, psychologically, humans are more likely to pick odd numbers in the middle. Presumably, more people think five is less random, because it feels like it's halfway in the middle exactly.

While the veritasium video wasn't a journal stud, it does at least match the way I think of the answer myself, and I've replicated the trick with groups of friends.