Video sneak peek for next week!
Added 2024-03-22 21:26:44 +0000 UTCA fun video that will explain our previous random number survey... would love to know any suggestions, confusions, corrections, or thoughts. Note some animations are still works in progress. Hope you enjoy, and thanks so much for your support & feedback!
Emily, on behalf of the Ve team.
Comments
3 is 3 away from 0 and 7 is 3 away from 10. Seems like they’re the “middle” numbers between 0-5-10. Counting in 2s 5s and 10s seems way more common than in 3s. perhaps people are equating most uncommon to most random. It would be interesting to provide an alternative range of numbers, like 1-50, and see how 37 performs
Selena Rampolla
2024-03-27 18:32:45 +0000 UTCI have to agree with Christian L. The last part seems very pseudoscience like.
katgod
2024-03-26 18:39:07 +0000 UTCYeah, not a fan of the numerology part at the end.
Christian Leichsenring
2024-03-25 21:59:04 +0000 UTCMissed opportunity for a Numberphile coop? 😄
Christian Leichsenring
2024-03-25 21:48:48 +0000 UTCI thought the most common colour is "red"?
Christian Leichsenring
2024-03-25 21:20:54 +0000 UTCI would be curious for some short additional stats at 6:45 — if you look at just the last digit, what is the spread then.. and same for second last digit.. Thanks for a fun video!
Jonas
2024-03-24 22:53:31 +0000 UTCI just totally blew my family's mind. (It worked). Thank you. :)
Aaron Koblin
2024-03-24 04:45:38 +0000 UTC@4:44 "And ignoring 42 and 69 because these are clearly not random numbers" For the sake of foreign audiences, could you expand on this? Ex: "because they have a strong cultural connotation in American culture and are therefore unlikely to be random". @12:33 "Say the best option is in the spot just after S, S+1. Well then, we'd have a 100% chance of picking it." @13:47 "So the probability that we select the best option is S/n*ln(N/S)" What is "S" here? Are these options to pick sorted randomly or ordered? And why does discarding a random number of options help? This whole explanation of the probability was very difficult for me to follow (even after multiple watches) and seems like it could be skipped (in its present form, at least) without loosing the substance of the video. All the statements made are true, but it feels like the narrative lost traction during this whole section.
chromicacid
2024-03-24 01:52:50 +0000 UTCC-137🤯
Jaimy van Weiden
2024-03-23 22:53:37 +0000 UTCBut I wasn't stumped, I did it on purpose. That's probably another good reason.
Donald J Arndt
2024-03-23 13:40:10 +0000 UTCA delightful topic. It appears you stumbled into the art of survey question design. If you have the energy to consider this, you might want to comment on how psychological priming could change the distribution you found. For example, if you ask "pick a two digit random number" instead of "1 to 100", does it change these so-called outliers near the extremes? More interestingly, you could study the mechanism that you propose involving for base 10 three and seven "feeling" more random. Your proposal implies that many people are assembling *strings* of symbols rather than thinking of numbers on a number line. To study this, you could expand the survey and randomly prime people with either a number line or a symbol input box. You could even ask each person to pick random numbers in a couple different ways: slide a slider on a number line, and then spin a combo-lock graphic, and then move some clock-like hands. Maybe have them spin some 3D-looking dice. I'd love to see more on the intersection of perception and number theory.
TTST
2024-03-23 11:02:05 +0000 UTCI won't go through all examples but e.g. 69 is usually where person decided to get cheeky. Instead of giving random number they give a number that is perceived as funny because of its cultural significance.
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 08:54:58 +0000 UTCSometimes people asked for random number are stumped. And since they can't think of anything they will i instead go for some method of creating the number. Other times they get cheeky and quote some culturally significant number like 69.
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 08:53:07 +0000 UTCYes. That's what I literally say in my first sentence.
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 08:50:26 +0000 UTCWhat about an early draft of a video about katana that you released on YouTube? Shad from Shadiversity raised some concerns. Would you mind addressing those?
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 06:48:19 +0000 UTCThanks everyone for starting to give feedback. The typos in the animations (1/1 vs 1/10, N/S vs S/N, a floating 1/15) have been fixed - while animations are very early drafts, the voiceover is more final and should all be accurate, so let us know especially if you hear anything incorrect. Thank you for your care!
Veritasium
2024-03-23 06:39:33 +0000 UTCNot to mention 3/30 reduces to 1/10 not 1/1.
Dorus Peelen
2024-03-23 06:23:22 +0000 UTC17:17 wouldn't it be poetic if it was 37 minutes later :-D
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 05:33:04 +0000 UTCThe segment from Emily just before 11:00 is nice, but her lips are glowing so much it's distracting. Less heavy make-up, more powder for the camera please.
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 05:25:43 +0000 UTCAn animation error at 9:19 1/30+1/15=1/1 You could show an intermediate step of 1/30+2/30=3/30 for people who are not that fast with their head-math.
Bartosz Błaszkiewicz
2024-03-23 05:21:33 +0000 UTCThe video is very math-heavy, so I feel like it would have been interesting to get some commentary from psychology professionals too. Perhaps right after the 'Blue-Seven Phenomenon" is introduced or at the 15:05 mark when mentioning the subconscious recognition of 37's importance.
Kimberly Green
2024-03-23 04:03:51 +0000 UTC14:07 if ln(N/S)=-1 (I haven't checked the calculus before that point, so the error could be there), then that means e^-1 = N/S which means 1/e = N/S, not 1/e=S/N.
C.J. Smith
2024-03-23 03:47:14 +0000 UTC8:57 It feels like the 1/15 in the center should not be there?
C.J. Smith
2024-03-23 03:39:12 +0000 UTCAn absolutely fascinating topic! At 5:40, you seem to be repeating the 37-73 pattern mentioned earlier. Are you making a different point? The charts didn't seem to distingish the first from second question results. At 9:23, the audio states 1/10th but shows 1/1 on the screen. At 14:02, you say "Natural Log of S/N" when the graphic shows Ln(N/S).
Chris Mullin
2024-03-23 01:43:21 +0000 UTCWhy were the outliers left out??!! They are random numbers too! If outliers are not random then there are more numbers that could be decided as not "Random Enough."
Donald J Arndt
2024-03-23 00:24:43 +0000 UTCWow, that is a lot of cherry picking to get down to 37 in the community poll. 9th most popular number picked overall.
Kyle Nishioka
2024-03-22 22:32:40 +0000 UTCFor family friendly reasons, I can appreciate the fact that a Clerks clip wasn’t included in the montage. But I was really, really hoping it would sneak in there as a nod to folks who know.
Andrew W
2024-03-22 22:15:26 +0000 UTCTo be fair I choose 78 because it is 7 and number one more than 7...
Timur Sultanov
2024-03-22 21:54:09 +0000 UTCI picked 78 and 50 (turns out was wrong about 50, next time will pick 90, good to know) 78 is completely not random and I am aware of it, but that is just number that I always pick and I just like how it sounds in Russian which is my native language...
Timur Sultanov
2024-03-22 21:37:35 +0000 UTC
