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| | Letter to the Editor |
 | | If we allow some 'breakaways' to suggest that the number 87 is no longer the precedent for randomness, our culture will be seriously deprived of a great part of its livelihood, being that the obvious choice for randomness is 87. |
 | | The number three, being the factor most at controversy, is itself more random than 14, because it readily yields numbers of any digits, whereas an even number will only lead to half of them. |
 | | That is, there is absolutely no reason to choose the number 87; it has no special properties, no social, economic, psychological, religious, international, or statistical significance, and yet, it appears in all circumstances in prices, statistics, dates, percentages, and many others. |
| www.mathnews.uwaterloo.ca /Issues/mn7807/random.html (810 words) |
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