Strong Law of Small Numbers

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In his humorous 1988 paper The Strong Law of Small Numbers, the mathematician Richard K. Guy makes the statement that "There aren't enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them." In other words, any given small number appears in far more contexts than may seem reasonable, leading to many apparently surprising coincidences in mathematics, simply because small numbers appear so often and yet are so few. Confirmation bias can lead many inexperienced mathematicians to conclude that these concepts are related, which in fact they are not.

Guy's observation has since become part of mathematical folklore^{[citation needed]}, and is commonly referenced by other authors.

[edit] See also

• Pigeonhole principle
• Mathematical coincidence
• Proof by intimidation
• Strong law of large numbers (Unrelated, but the origin of the name)

[edit] External links

• Richard K. Guy. The Strong Law of Small Numbers. The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 95, No. 8 (Oct., 1988), pp. 697-712
• http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/page.php?sort=LawOfSmall
• http://mathworld.wolfram.com/StrongLawofSmallNumbers.html

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