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137 significance??

Seraph said:
She told me how she came to realize, after 2 months ago a friend was talking about the number 137 and how it appears everywhere and we don't realize it...
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This is confirmation bias, pure and simple.

If you go looking for something you will usually find it, the problem is you forget all the times you DIDN'T find it. Like with homeopathy - homeopaths can quote hundreds of cases where a condition improved after giving homeopathy and I have no doubt most of them are being truthful. The problem is they conveniently forget the far greater number of times when it was associated with no improvement or a worsening.

Why don't you pick a number at random and say you've found the same for that number and the two of you can count the number of times you see that one over the next few weeks.

Also, I would have to point out that 1:37 (i.e. 1 minute, 37 seconds) is NOT the same as the number one hundred and thirty seven - more cognitive bias here I'm afraid.

Seraph said:
Not to mention, this girl said I was "the worst person" shes met all day, because everything that came out of her mouth I disagreed with :(.
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Yeah, I get that too :cool:. No one like a clever clogs, especially one that likes to look rationally at a pet theory. Still, it's what we do!

Yuri
 
I'm exactly 1:37 ahead of where I was 1:37 ago, and 1:37 behind where I will be 1:37 from now.
And in inches....
 
Maybe you can get her back on your good side by showing off this little gem to her:

1+3+7=11
1+1=2

13+7=20
2+0=2

1+37=38
3+8=11
1+1=2

17+3=20
2+0=2

31+7=38
3+8=11
1+1=2

37+1=38
3+8=11
1+1=2

73+1=74
7+4=11
1+1=2

71+3=74
7+4=11
1+1=2

Coincidence that 1,2,3,and 7 are the first 4 prime numbers? (We exclude 5, of course, because it is the sum of the two primes before it).* also note the number of 11s in there, the next prime in the series. Yeah, I know, right?

*Why not exclude 3 for this same reason? Well, you can't have 137 without a 3, can you?!
Eleventy.
 
For my newest cellphone I was given a choice of numbers to have.. I chose the one with 666 in it, expecting that would keep the godshouters away.
So far it has!
Hallelujah!
 
We used to have a member here who was obsessed with the number 23. He had a website where he displayed scanned images of receipts and bills he had received that contained the number 23. Does anyone remember his name?
Of course you can find any number if your consciously looking for it.

Steve S
 
allways anserwer is 3:

137= 3x33+33+33+3/3+3/3

is not nessessary any others number ererything in univers can been souwn to be coming from three.

______Gligor Makedonksa is graet phlosphopjer and scientis.
 
Yuri Nalyssus said:
This is confirmation bias, pure and simple.
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There is more to 137 than confirmation bias.

The fine structure constant is very close to 1/137, and back around the second quarter of the last century there was a time it looked like it might be exactly 1/137

That was seen by many as too odd to be chance, and some (very good) physicists tried to figure out why it might have to be exactly 1/137

As It turned out, the fine structure constant is not exactly 1/137.

I feel people poke a bit too much fun at those tried to understand these implications, back when 137 was arguably exact under progressively better experimental estimation.

But in terms of this thread, it is certainly one of the more special three digit numbers for physicists, even if it is not nearly so special as it was once hoped to be in physics.
 
lenny said:
There is more to 137 than confirmation bias.

The fine structure constant is very close to 1/137, and back around the second quarter of the last century there was a time it looked like it might be exactly 1/137

That was seen by many as too odd to be chance, and some (very good) physicists tried to figure out why it might have to be exactly 1/137

As It turned out, the fine structure constant is not exactly 1/137.
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That's just wrong. Well, at best, that's extremely misleading.

There never was a time when it looked it might be "exactly 1/137", at least not in the sense of there having ever been an even remotely good reason to suggest "exactly 1/137".

And while it is true that at least some otherwise good physicists tried to find reasons why it might be exactly 1/137, that's not the same claim at all. It just shows that it is possible for good physicists to succumb to numerology.

Once upon a time the same otherwise good physicists have tried to find reasons why it might be "exactly 1/136" as well, only to switch when experiments became more accurate. "Sir Arthur Adding-one," anyone? What does that mean? It means there is nothing more to 137 than confirmation bias after all.
 
Vorpal said:
That's just wrong. Well, at best, that's extremely misleading.
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It was not intended to be misleading. Let me try again

First without the physics:

The Eddington story alone implies there is a story, a source for 137 being unusually popular. As 42 is unusually popular. I took "confirmation bias" to mean that one could take any number, say, look for it, and then find it "everywhere."

There is nothing deeply special about 42 , yet to say one finds references to it purely due to selection bias... Is that what u hold?

As with 42, so with 136 and 137.

Better?
 
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lenny said:
The Eddington story alone implies there is a story, a source for 137 being unusually popular. As 42 is unusually popular. I took "selection bias" to mean that one could take any number, say, look for it, and then find it "everywhere."

There is nothing deeply special about 42 , yet to say one finds references to it purely due to selection bias... Is that what u hold?
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I'd call it "confirmation bias" instead, but otherwise yes.
Eddington's story was itself caused by Eddington inventing reasons to confirm his belief about 136 or 137 being special, so it itself was just about a textbook case of confirmation bias. Then we have the person described in the OP seeing it everywhere because she believes it to be significant.

lenny said:
As with 42, so with 136 and 137.

Better?
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No, I don't agree.
 
Numbers 1:37 "Those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of Benjamin, were thirty and five thousand and four hundred."

Ye gads, is there no bottom to this rabbit hole?
 
Vorpal said:
There never was a time when it looked it might be "exactly 1/137", at least not in the sense of there having ever been an even remotely good reason to suggest "exactly 1/137".

And while it is true that at least some otherwise good physicists tried to find reasons why it might be exactly 1/137, that's not the same claim at all. It just shows that it is possible for good physicists to succumb to numerology.
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To be clear: No remotely good reason was found. And the results presented are obviously nothing more than numerology

But to damn Eddington and others for looking is to abuse hindsight.

To complain that their hopes overcame their scientific judgement (that they hung on to employ numerology for too long) is certainly fair. Many good scientists hang onto a pet theory too long now and then. I think it is useful to note that fact.

But to claim it was absurd from the start seems not only incorrect but unfair. And gives the wrong impression of science always being "right from the start,"

My apologies if my failing to distinguish 136 and 137 was the heart of your complaint. I'd hold the distinction does not matter in terms of confirmation bias.

The distinction certainly plays a role in terms of arguing when one "should" let go of a pet theory. I should have been more clear.

Did you disagree beyond this?
 
Saying that 137 is very close to the fine structure number, aside from being incorrect, reminded me of a letter to the editor many years ago when Canada was switching to metric measure.
The author complained that the Imperial system made much more sense because it lined up better with physical constants. I don't recall all of his examples but one made me laugh out loud.
He said that the speed of light was " almost exactly 186000 miles per second but in metric it was 299792 Km per second". He characterized the metric velocity as ridiculously unwieldy. Apparently unknown to him is that usingbthe same number of Sig figures in Imperial measure it is 186292 miles per second, no less unwieldy,,,, and to bring this about to this thread, neither unit measures have the three digit sequence 137
 
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