how does this work?

[Lucky]

during the david blane show the other day, he asked a few people to think of a number. The rules were:

Had to be between 1 and 50
Each digit had to be different
They both had to be odd digits


Instantly I came up with 37, and all of the folks he showed did as well. There are many other numbers, why does the mind think of 37 first?

 

[pyonir]

37!?!?! in a row?

 

[Frosty3799]

htere arent that many possibilities... but still thats pretty cool
EDIT:

hmmm... cant be 1-10 , but it can be 13,15,17,19
cant be 20-30, can be 31 35 37 39
cant be 40-50

there are only really 8 possibilities

 

[Ameesh]

there is a reason they call it magic

 

[Rallispec]

it has to do with the way the human brain works... we studied it in pyschology...

i think its the same if you tell people to pick a number between 1 and 5-- 90% of them pick 3.

 

[dbzwukan]

repost, and was explained by someone that goes like this

possibilities being only 13,15,17,19, 31 35 37 39

and usually the mind will eliminate ones that begin with 1 and try to pick the numbers in the middle
so we're left with 31,35,37,39

now, going with the 1 rule and the 9 rule (eliminate the numbers in the end), we're left with 35,37

at that point, it's usually 37

 

[ChinamanatNCSU]

I dunno, I picked 17, but that's just because for some reason I like that number...
I bet not every person he asked picked 37. Maybe a small majority, but those that didn't can be easily edited out, right?

 

[chasem]

i picked 37 too,

a lot of ppl watched that show on sunday,


I liked the quarter trick

 

[Lucky]

interesting,thanks dbzwukan