Kind: captions
Language: en
let me show you something unbelievable
name a random number between 1 and 100
uh 61 okay that's pretty random just
name a random number from 1 to 100
random 43 43 thank you so much 56 7 I
want the most random number between 1
and 100 like totally random 11 37 79 79
thank you so much 91 7 three 37 37 why
37 I it's first first number that came
from online 44 27 37 72 4 13 7 37 really
s n m see 13 7 37 37 73 uh 37 35 37 37
no away 43 2
37 I knew you were going to do it we
just 37 and walked away between 1 and
100 all no offense okay 37 oh perfect
thank you so much 83 37 37 97 55 37 37
and I shake your hand I love the thought
you're putting into this 37 no you are
kidding me are you real yeah what did we
ask you this already no random number
between 1 to 100 37 37 oh my gosh yes
name a random number between 1 and 100
uh 37 are you kidding
me why um it's a good number I guess
any number where did that come from uh
imagination I
suppose so what's going on well people
are actually really bad at selecting
things randomly in fact when asked to
pick a color and a number people
reliably select blue and seven the most
across dozens of different cultures
psychologists have a name for this
pattern the blue seven phenomenon and
when picking a random number between 1
and 100 it has long been suggested that
the equivalent of the blue 7 phenomenon
is the number 37 my producer Emily and I
spoke to hundreds of people to test this
Theory the most common answer was seven
but maybe that's because people just
expected that we'd ask them for numbers
between 1 and 10 the most common
two-digit number really was 37 much to
our
surprise so we decided to embark on the
biggest investigation ever on the number
7 and it took us to some unexpected
places I think 37 is a fascinating
number it's just really interesting
because it turns up so much how many how
many objects are there here in the room
with us that have a 37 on them but I'm
sure there's more than 1,000 here I
built the 37 website in 1994 I started
getting email from strangers it's
everywhere I'm trying to collect them
all we're tireless the tireless cabal of
37 people yeah apparently people choose
37 so reliably that there's even a
widespread professional magic trick that
relies entirely on getting an audience
member to just pick 37 out of thin air
it's called the 37 Force going to ask
you to think of a number in a moment
okay it's a two-digit number it's less
than 50 both o numbers are odd but
different you could have 19 17 or 15 but
not 11 because you see both numbers are
the same one and one next to one another
are you ready 1 2 and three what number
did you think of 37 37
fascinating in the famous Stanford MIT
jargon file the origin of hacker slang
37 is given as the random number of
choice for computer programmers when
groups of people are pulled to pick a
random number between 1 and 100 the most
commonly chosen number is
37 the thing is no formal polls on this
actually exist the best we found was a
Reddit poll of 1,300 180 people from 4
years ago and the most popular number
was 69 but after that the winning number
was
37 but we can do better than a sample
size of just a th000 people so we
conducted the largest random number
survey ever in a community post 3 weeks
ago we asked people to pick a random
number between 1 and 100 we received
200,000
responses here are the results as they
came in it's fascinating to watch how
consistent these supposedly random
numbers are from 10,000 to 100,000 all
the way up to 200,000 respondents the
distribution barely changes suggesting
that people from all around the world
think about random numbers in a
particular way and it is decidedly not
random ignoring the extremes of the
scale because people were PR Ed by the
numbers 1 and 100 in the question itself
and ignoring 42 and 69 because they're
not random there are a few numbers that
stand out which we seem to regard as
more random than the rest 7 73 77 and
37 then we asked people to pick the
number they thought the fewest others
would pick the goal was to get rid of
favorite or lucky numbers and give truly
random selections and here here the
results were even clearer again ignoring
the very extremes and 50 in the middle
the most selected numbers were far in
away 73 and 37 which were nearly
tied the actual least picked number in
the first question was 90 followed by 30
40 70 80 and 60 multiples of 10
apparently don't seem that random the
most picked overall numbers ignoring the
outliers were 73 and 37
ironically all this evidence points to
37 and its inversion 73 as not being
random at all so why does everyone pick
them well one argument is that this is
just how people perceive Randomness 37
does that feel random to you yeah it
does yeah 50 wouldn't be random no it
would be too um contrived yeah yeah it's
two Central I think people think that
even numbers are less random than odd
numbers five feels not random nine and
one feel too extreme so people tend
towards 3 and seven this is backed up by
the fact that every one of the top
numbers in our survey consisted of
Threes And
Sevens in fact three and seven were the
most selected digits on both
questions but there's also a
mathematical case for Humanity's number
of choice because it's not just odd
numbers but specifically primes which
feel like the most random numbers no
notice how we ignore odds ending in
fives or how something like 39 still
feels a little less random than
37 primes feel random for at least two
reasons first they don't appear as much
in our lives mean pixel counts fruit
boxes square footage we live in a
composite world with multiple Dimensions
that multiply together so we just don't
see primes much past the single
digits second we don't have a formula
for primes if you have a prime number
and you want to find the next one you
have no choice but to check every number
until you find a prime the closest thing
we have to a formula is the prime number
theorem which gives the approximation
that the nth prime number occurs around
n * natural log of n for example the
thousandth prime number should be around
698 and it's close but certainly not
exact so primes essentially occur at
random but of all the primes 37 has
reason to stand
out if we were to find the prime factors
of every number we would see that two is
the smallest prime factor for exactly
half of them all of the even numbers and
three is the smallest prime factor for a
sixth of all numbers anything that's
divisible by three but not by two and so
on as we pick larger and larger primes
they form the smallest prime factor for
fewer and fewer integers but what if we
track the second smallest prime factor
of each number well first we have three
which is the second prime factor of a
number only when the number is divisible
by both 2 and three or divisible by six
so 1 16th of all numbers have a second
prime factor of three and as we keep
going which number will end up at the
balancing point this is the median
second prime factor of all numbers all
numbers from one all the way up to a
Google and off to Infinity would you
believe that that number is
37 let's take a look at five five is the
second prime factor only when a number
is divisible by five and three but not
two or five and two but not three in the
first case a number divisible by 5 and
three means it's divisible by 15 so
that's 1/5th of all numbers but it also
can't be divisible by two so half of
1/5th is a 30th of all numbers in the
second case a number to divisible by 5
and 2 means it's divisible by 10 but it
cannot be divisible by three so we're
left with 1/10th * 2/3 equals 115 of all
numbers adding up these two cases we get
that 1/10th of all numbers have five as
their second prime factor and we can
repeat this for the next Prime Seven
just take each of these cases and add
them up to get that 15th of all integers
have a second prime factor of seven and
so on keep keeping a running total we
quickly approach a balancing point for
the second prime factor across all
integers and then we reach it so the
median second prime factor of all
numbers is 37 half of numbers have a
second prime factor of 37 or
less there are other remarkable
qualities about 37 as a prime it's an
irregular prime a Cuban prime a lucky
prime a sexy prime a permutable prime a
padan prime and at this point
mathematicians might just be making up
types of primes 37's identity as a prime
number is so strong that the same day I
first learned the number 37 I learned it
was Prime this was one of my first books
as a toddler it teaches you every number
from 1 to 100 with a short story or fun
fact for each so for 26 that's how many
letters in the alphabet or for 30 they
give the days of September or for 52
that's how many cards are in a deck
except 37
it's a prime number nothing goes into it
someday you'll
understand I did not like that I
understood every other number so I also
wanted to understand 37 so that number
has nagged me ever since and now this
video is being made some 20 years
later not convinced yet if you take a
number that is a multiple of 37 already
like 1369 that's 37 squ and then you
reverse it and then you stick a z
in between every digit then that number
is a multiple of 37 and I literally
spent the next month on the bus trying
to prove that fact which I finally did
just rattle off a six-digit number tell
me any six-digit number uh
25 it's not it's not divisible by 37 so
how did I figure that out um there's a
there's a trick for that is this your
like party trick that you can bring out
surprisingly it doesn't impress as many
people as you would think I think it
should impress
everybody but there's also a practical
reason 37 is an important number for
Humanity say you're faced with a choice
that is both immediate and final like
whether to rent the apartment you've
just toured or whether to accept a job
offer you received or it can be as small
as whether to stop the next gas station
on a road trip these are all problems
where you can't assess all the options
at once and then decide with each option
you encounter you need to decide whether
to accept it or reject it forever and
see what comes next in these scenarios
it feels impossible to make the best
choice if you select too early you'll
probably never even see the best option
but if you select too late well then
you've probably rejected the best option
already so your best bet is somewhere in
the middle there you know at least some
information from the options you've seen
and you have some choice to select or
pass but how do you know exactly when to
decide
the optimal strategy looks like this
first you need to see some options and
reject them automatically just to learn
what's out there and then at a certain
stopping point s you need to stop
rejecting them and start evaluating
whether an option is the best you've
seen so far if it is then select it but
when should that stopping point be we
need to work out which stopping point
maximizes our chances of picking the
best option we can calculate calculate
these chances for each spot find the
probability that the best option is
located there times the probability we
get there from stopping point s then add
these probabilities up across every
spot now the chance of the best option
being in any spot is just random if
there are n options in total it's 1 over
n but it's a little harder to find the
chances of getting to each spot say the
best option is in the next spot after s
s+1 what are the chances we get there
well since this is the next spot over
from the stopping point we have 100%
chance of getting there so we're
guaranteed to visit it and select it but
if the true best option is in spot s+2
well there's a small chance we'll miss
it if the best of all the previous
options is sitting in spot s+1 we would
just pick that and stop looking before
reaching
s+2 there's a one in s+1 chance of this
happening
so the chances we do get to spot s plus2
to pick the true best option is 1 minus
that or S over
s+1 this same calculation continues up
until the last spot n we only get here
if we've been passing on every option so
far which means that one of the first s
options must have been the best of the
total n minus1 options we've
seen in total this gives us the
expression 1 / n * 1 + S / s + + 1+ s/ S
+ 2 and so on all the way up to s/
nus1 factoring out the S the sum inside
the parentheses approximates the
function 1 /x going from s to n taking
that integral we get the natural log of
n / s so the probability we select the
best option is s/ n * the natural log of
n / s to maximize this probability we
can find the peak of this function by
setting its derivative to zero and this
gives the natural log of s/ n = -1 so s/
n = 1 over e or about
37% so explore and reject 37% of options
just to get a sense of what's out there
and then pick the first option to come
along that's better than all of the ones
you've seen so far and your chances of
success using this method are also 37%
this math question is known as the
secretary problem or the marriage
problem as it also applies to hiring the
best employees or even deciding on the
best life partner now it can be
impractical to check 37% of the options
because you don't always know how many
candidates are out there but the 37%
rule also works for time so if you want
to get married say in 10 years then
spend the first 3.7 years seeing what's
out there and then select the next
person who's better than anyone you've
seen so 37 is actually important to our
lives and people seem to subconsciously
recognize this we gravitate towards the
number
[Music]
everywhere 37 seconds 37 years 37
patties I was 37 37 cubic feet 37 37 how
many enemies do you have 37 37 37% 37 37
37 hours destroyed 37 restaurants 37 I'm
37 37 interlocking bronze gears page 37
37 years old 37 prototypes
37% this collection of images everything
you're seeing on screen has been
collected by one man over the course of
his life and you already know who it is
it's just fun right the whole thing is
just fun how many how many objects are
there here in the room with us that have
a 37 on them uh this is probably on the
order of uh four digits I'd say um
there's probably not 10,000 but I'm sure
there's more than 1,000 here neutr grain
uh granola bars 37 G it's a 37 in yard
stick it's just some political cartoon
about sports but there's no reason that
guy had to have jersey number 37 a nail
that I found somewhere that has 37 on
the head I don't even know what that
means one time my mom gave me $37 for my
birthday they all have 37 in the serial
number was your 37th birthday like the
greatest birthday ever I had a big party
and I invited everybody I knew the Texas
state lottery was $37 million I had two
different friends who both gave me 37
lottery tickets I didn't win I won five
bucks this is an article from when they
found the 37th meren Prime it's just
clipping after clipping how many how
many hundreds of these do you want me to
go through I must have gotten that in
Germany but I don't know but I don't
remember what it was was it like a
Locker number I wouldn't steal a Locker
number I've never stolen for
37 look at that stolen from the highway
when I was on a road trip I say you've
never me I have committed a crime yes
there was a a bookstore on campus when I
was in undergrad at at KU and there were
37 steps in that staircase useful facts
these are useful facts do you feel like
everyone gets 37 this much in their
lives or do you feel like you're just
attracting it that's a good question you
know the reason I started was because it
seemed like it turned up a lot I started
back in the 80s there was a comedy
routine by Charles Fleer and he went
through this sort of Lany of
coincidences about the number 37 like
there are 37 holes in the speaker part
of a
telephone Shakespeare wrote 37 plays
there's 37 movements in Beethoven's nine
Symphonies there are all these amazing
coincidences that he rattled off I was
amazed and I've been collecting them
ever since since like 1981 uh yeah so 43
43 years
probably I built the 37 website for the
first time in 1994 I don't know how the
website got out there but it but somehow
it got out there uh I started getting
email from strangers I've
got maybe a half a dozen people from
around the world who every week or month
will post um their latest batch of 37s
that they've seen out and about and
they've been doing this for how long 18
years wow we're tireless the tireless
cabal of 37 people yeah do you have
anything to say to anyone who might be
like 37 that's just a base 10
representation of that number I am also
interested the number 37 in all of its
various other forms Roman numerals
binary numbers one01 01 by the way um
numbers in any other base yeah 25 uh in
heximal 4 five in octal and do you think
you're going to keep looking for a 37
and collecting 37 for your whole life
yeah yeah I can't see any reason to stop
yeah for sure so maybe there's even
something innately universally special
about this
[Music]
number
we can argue special coincidences for
many numbers but we need to finally
address the elephant in the room the
sheer amount of brain power 37 secretly
takes up in our Collective Minds it's
Humanity's go-to random number one of
our most prominent prime numbers and
most of all our ideal number for making
decisions maybe that's why we're
inclined to it naturally it feels right
to us as where to settle and what to
pick though with this we may have ruined
Randomness even further I mean the next
time anyone asks people to pick a random
number between 1 and 100 more people
than ever might be saying
37 it's been the story of my life that I
intend to take everything that I have
here and turn them all into individual
facts on that website uh but the
website's been there untouched for 27
years and it hasn't happened it doesn't
look like it's ever going to happen
maybe on the 37th anniversary you can
get it all done that's a good idea
that's a good idea I because I have time
to do it between now and then uh and
that would be that would be that's
that's a great idea once our video comes
out do you want people to write you with
any instances they see of 37 you might
get swamped for a little bit 37 is out
there it's everywhere I'm trying to
collect them all bring it yes bring
it our intuition is one of the most
powerful tools we have and the number 37
is just one example of the Unseen
patterns in our minds luckily there's a
way to supercharge your intuition giving
you the skills to see beyond the
everyday and uncover Hidden Truths about
our world and you can get started right
now for free with this video sponsor
brilliant brilliant gets you handson
with Concepts in everything from math
and data science to programming and
Technology to help sharpen your thinking
and build your problem solving skills on
brilliant you'll learn by doing so even
abstract Concepts just click Plus you'll
be able to take what you learn and apply
it to real world situations with every
lesson you'll also be building critical
thinking skills training your brain to
use your intuition to draw powerful
insights there's so much to learn on
brilliant they have thousands of
interactive lessons to feed your
curiosity and because each one is
bite-sized it's easy to learn something
new even if you only have a few minutes
to spare the best part is you can learn
from anywhere right on your phone so
wherever you are you can be building
knowledge and honing your intuition to
try everything brilliant has to offer
for free for 30 days visit brilliant.org
veritasium scan this QR code or click on
the link in the description and you'll
get 20% off brilliant's annual premium
subscription so I want to thank
brilliant for sponsoring this part of
the video and I want to thank you for
watching