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Why is this number everywhere?

Veritasium · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Probability & game theoryPsychology & human behaviorRecreational & visual math

What it is

Veritasium explores why the number 37 turns up so often, drawing on Tom Magliery's collection of 37 sightings and a poll of about 200,000 people asked to pick a random number. It covers how humans choose numbers and why 37 stands out.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN cites it in LLM randomness and number-picking threads as evidence that humans are also biased and predictable when asked for random numbers.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2024, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “Can highly recommend the channel anyway — especially for the HN crowd.”

    Explains in detail why 37 shows up everywhere; channel suits HN readers.

    golergka, 2024-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Thirty Seven”

  2. “Derek Muller did a good overview of this concept on his Veritasium channel”

    Good overview of the concept, with a link to a speaker's website.

    mitch_f, 2025-08 · Recommendation · in “The Ski Rental Problem”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: number 37, randomness, probability, veritasium, psychology

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