Monday, March 16, 2009

A Random Digit a Day Blog

The blogger posts a random number every day.

The first day's number, 5, arouses no suspicion. Neither do the next several numbers (6, 2, and 6, respectively). But as the days pass and the numbers accumulate, a graduate student in mathematics and makes a terrifying discovery while reading the blog.

The numbers are not just random, but utterly and completely random. And as time passes, they are becoming more so. On May 17th the number 1 is posted, which is so absolutely detached from the numbers before that one person actually has a heart attack (although as it turns out, the two events were unrelated).

Panic starts to set in as the randomness of the numbers reaches dangerous levels. But then, for no apparent reason, the numbers settle back into a typical random pattern. 6 is posted, and comfort is taken in that the next number could be just about anything (but not just anything).

The next day's digit is 8, but it just as easily could have been 9, or 0, or 2, or something else.

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