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by p1necone 459 days ago
1 and 10 are on the boundary, that's not random so those are out.

5 is exactly halfway, that's not random enough either, that's out.

2, 4, 6, 8 are even and even numbers are round and friendly and comfortable, those are out too.

9 feels too close to the boundary, it's out.

That leaves 3 and 7, and 7 is more than 3 so it's got more room for randomness in it right?

Therefore 7 is the most random number between 1 and 10.

2 comments

That's all well and good, but 4 is actually the most random number, because it was chosen by fair dice roll.
Also because humans are biased towards viewing prime numbers as more counterintuitive and thus more unpredictable.
Last time I hallway tested it, people couldn’t tell what prime numbers are, and to my surprise even the ones with tech/math-y background forgot it. My results were something 1.5/10 (ages 30+-5) and I didn’t go to cabinets where I knew there are zero chances.
But there's a difference between "knowing what the formal definition is" and "having a feeling that a number is somehow unique due to it's indivisibility".