I seem to recall that Douglas Hofstadter had a contest which devolved into a 'pick the biggest number you can think of' contest. It didn't turn out very well, but he said he got a number of entries from people who were absolutely convinced that they were going to win.
Probably going with the median would have been a better idea, but I am mostly counting on $5 not being enough money to inspire people to go to those lengths. (I guess actually it would be $5/(number of confederates).)
One of the things I wondered was if different groups of people would tend to pick different numbers, but since I didn't have a very clear picture in my head as to what I meant by 'different groups of people' this contest will probably not provide a good answer to that.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-10-06 06:56 pm (UTC)Probably going with the median would have been a better idea, but I am mostly counting on $5 not being enough money to inspire people to go to those lengths. (I guess actually it would be $5/(number of confederates).)
One of the things I wondered was if different groups of people would tend to pick different numbers, but since I didn't have a very clear picture in my head as to what I meant by 'different groups of people' this contest will probably not provide a good answer to that.