> > Personally, I think the "hills" would be closer
> > to 38 and 62 -- around the golden section.
> > (Which Monkeyman (and Fuzzpilz too) already has
> > proved. ;-)
>
> Hah. What's really ironic is that 38 would've been one of the *last* numbers to randomly come across my mind. Seriously.
>
> -- codeman"though I would've readily picked *any* of Fuzzpilz' suggestions. As well as Avogadro's number--hey, if the speed of light is a choice..."38

Funny. I saw a magic trick once where you could very consistently get people to pick a number from one to a hundred and they'd nearly always pick thirty-seven.

Not using any mathematical runarounds, either. It really was because thirty-seven is more psychologically "comfortable" a number than many others. Heck, I remember hearing Freud was obsessed with it; thought it was a man's ideal age, or something (the ideal age for a woman was thirty-one, since they reach their peak of maturity earlier; sexism rearing its ugly head again).

I guess it's because of a combination of factors; the "mystical significance" of three and seven, the desire to pick a lower rather than higher number, the desire to pick an odd rather than even number (Why *are* odd numbers more appealing than even, anyway? Even the Pythagoreans associated odds with good and evens with evil. Not coincidentally, odds were masculine and evens feminine. #$&% sexists.), the appeal of the golden ratio (or nearness to it), etc....

Ugh. This ultimately becomes a huge game of second-guessing, third-guessing, fourth-guessing... (They *expect* me to pick the extremes, so I won't; they *expect* me to pick a center instead, so I won't; they *expect* me to pick somewhere at the centers of the centers, so instead I'll pick somewhere at a ratio that's not in the center of *anything*... It's just like Iocaine powder.)

What would be *really* creepy, now, is having someone prove that people are just as likely to pick forty-two. And, in fact, I think that is a pretty popular choice. (When I tried the aforementioned trick, half the times it didn't work it was 'cause someone picked forty-two. The other half, of course, was bloody-minded jerks who really did pick a totally random number.)

Of course Douglas Adams said he just picked that number at random when writing the radio script, but *why* did he pick it at random? Deeper forces at work...?

Ar"but don't get me started on various mystical numbers"thur