Random Numbers
I watched Derren Brown’s Trick or Treat television show a couple of days ago and I found it particularly interesting because it focused on superstition.
In one segment Derren spoke about lottery games, and by using his usual mix of subconscious influence and showmanship as an illusionist, he managed to predict which numbers six participants would select when they were asked to randomly choose 1 number from the range 1 to 49.
There was no magic involved here in the sense of psychic skills or telepathy (both of which, as Derren would be only too pleased to explain, are fictitious ideas resulting from faulty reasoning). Instead, the predictions were possible because all human beings are creatures of habit, and the majority have superstitious tendencies that cause them to pick certain types of numbers over others.
For example, when asked to choose a number between 1 and 49, many people will choose day of the money that they view as special (such as a birthday), a house number, or a number that they consider to be particularly lucky for them.
Since all of our birthdays will be within the range 1 to 31, and most lucky numbers are in the range 1 to 13 (due to tradition making single digit numbers and the number 13 itself more important than all the others) it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand that a little knowledge about people can instantly help you to identify a handful of numbers that they are likely to pick. To illustrate: if you best friend is 22 years old and was born on the 22nd and lives at number 22 Acacia Avenue, the chances are pretty high that the number 22 will be more appealing than most others, even if he isn’t consciously aware of that preference.
What’s the practical point of all of this discussion? I’m glad you asked. My point is this: Because all human beings select numbers based on habit and personal meaning, we can’t really trust ourselves to pick truly random numbers. Whilst we might consciously think that we’re selecting numbers at random, subconsciously we might be relying on superstition by making sure that we choose a number that completes a certain pattern (three odd and three even, for example), or belongs to a certain sub-group (such as a number from 40 to 49).
Whilst there is nothing wrong with selecting lottery numbers based on personal meaning, and the odds of us winning the top prize are exactly the same as when we use any other method, if we really want to select random numbers the only way we can do it is by letting something outside of ourselves select them for us. Use a bingo game, pick numbers from a bag or simply opt for a Lucky Dip.
Article Last Updated: 10/06/2008 10:36:09
