Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Meaningless Patterns

In recent weeks, I have looked at the odometer in my car after parking at home in the evening and spotted 35200, 35300, 35500 and, today, 35600.

2 comments :

gradbot said...

I think this falls under the red light theory. Why are the lights always red? Because you don't notice the green ones.

Jens said...

I'm always impressed by the fact how good humans are at spotting patterns. When I see numbers, such as 2945, I immediately notice that 1) every second digit is even/odd, 2) 45*2=90 (or 9/2*10=45) which therefor relates to the digit in front of them.

I can do this with virtually any number.