The results of an online survey reveal a world in love with numbers that stand out and feel exceptional

Brides. Sages. Days. Seas. Sins. Sisters. Dwarves.

When it comes to ancient myths, stories and traditions, humans have always favoured seven above other numbers. And this heptophilia continues to the present day.

Today I’m releasing the results of an online survey I set up to find the world’s favourite number. Drum roll please! The top ten are:

7 3 8 4 5 13 9 6 2 11

The number 7 would like to thank its agent, its mother and its fans.

Okay, so I’m having a bit of fun. But only to make a serious point. The aim of the survey was to research the emotional connection that people have with numbers. In what non-numerical ways are we influenced by arithmetical patterns?

I got interested in this area because, as a maths communicator, I am always asked for my favourite number. Whenever I give talks – in schools, universities, festivals and corporate events – it's guaranteed this question will come up.

At first I thought this favourite number interrogation was frivolous, a way of poking fun at me (or maths). But gradually I learned that many people have genuinely strong feelings about numbers, and this realisation prompted me to launch the survey.

The response surpassed my expectations. Within a few weeks more than 30,000 people had taken part, which is when I started to clean the data and analyse it. Total responses now stand at 44,000.

The survey only polled people who found out about it online, and who voluntarily decided to take part, which means that the results do not have the rigour of a professional opinion poll or a laboratory experiment. Yet even so it is revealing about our number choices.



A summary of the results are:



1,123 individual numbers were nominated from 30,025 submissions.

Almost half of the submissions were for the numbers between 1 and 10.

Every number between 1 and 100 was chosen.

472 numbers between 1 and 1000 were chosen.

The lowest whole number that received nul points was 110.

If we had to nominate a "least favourite number" – 110 wins that gong.

In fact, the humiliation of 110 is an example of the most striking pattern in the data, which is that round numbers are rarely chosen as favourite numbers. Numbers ending in 0 are particularly unloved, as are numbers ending in 5 (with the exception of 5 itself).

Why might this be so? I’d argue that because round numbers are often used as approximations, they feel both too common and too vague to inspire an emotional connection. We are sensitive to arithmetical patterns, and respond emotionally to them.



The survey also asked respondents to explain their choices, and the most common reason for having a favourite number was that it was the day on which you were born.But if you were born on the 10th, or the 20th or the 30th of the month you are a lot less likely to choose 10, 20 or 30 as your favourite number than you are to choose 3, 7 or 13 if you were born on the 3rd, 7th or 13th of the month.

What we want in a favourite number is a "sticky" number – a number that stands out, that feels exceptional.

Which is why 7 came out top.

Seven owes its striking success in my survey – and in global culture since antiquity – to its exceptional arithmetical properties.



If we consider only the numbers between 1 and 10, the basic number grouping, 7 is the only number that cannot be multiplied or divided within the group.

1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 can be doubled.

6, 8 and 10 can be halved.

9 divides by 3.

7 is left on its own.



We love seven because it is unique. It reflects our uniqueness. Of course it’s the world’s favourite number.

Lucky 7 indeed.

The full results of the favourite number survey are available on the site favouritenumber.net.

If you are interested in this area, I discuss the survey, the cultural importance of 7 and other issues about our psychological responses to numbers in my new book Alex Through the Looking-Glass, out this week in the UK. The book will be out in June in the USA, called The Grapes of Math.