The trading of financial instruments is full of numerology and superstition. Traders and financial analysts talk of a stock "finding support" at certain prices which are often nice round numbers, and because one day a stock's decline in price was reversed once it hit a certain price, this becomes a self-fulfulling prophecy on subsequent days and people change their trading behaviour when the price approaches what is seen as a significant price. So this idea is to lose the attachment to certain numbers by having all trading carried out in a random number base every day.
-- hippo, Apr 01 2014

Benford's law http://www.google.c...nCdxJfk4y3jQnO7JPZQ
It is real and it can be used. It is still described as "mystical". [bungston, Apr 01 2014]

(?) Number of Ideas http://www.halfbake...number_20of_20ideas
I tested Benton's law on the numbers listed on this page. [bungston, Apr 01 2014]

Can you be sure that the strange powers of certain numbers actually is superstition? I thought I read something about how certain digits (maybe 1?) appear more often than can be explained. Maybe they truly are imbued with power. If so the question is how to rationally harness those powers for the good of humankind, and fabulous wealth, and groupies.
-- bungston, Apr 01 2014


I moved the number of ideas values to an excel spreadsheet and used the left$ and then the countif to find the frequencies of each digit as the first digit. Results: 17 11 6 4 8 6 4 5 1

Mystical I tells you. Mystical.
-- bungston, Apr 01 2014


This would only confuse the public, as traders would immediately overcome this with a base conversion program at the price feed. Even if you kept the base a secret, it would be trivial to calculate.
-- the porpoise, Apr 01 2014


So, let's say I bought a stock at 10 (on a long-ago base 10 day).

I hear the stock is fluctuating wildly, so I login quickly & place a limit sell order to sell at 100!

Too bad it's base-2 day & I didn't check. My 900% profit is now a 60% loss.

Is that the intention? If not, you have to have some conversion tools in the system for the user, in which case, you're really not changing anything, right?
-- sophocles, Apr 01 2014


Could this principal be applied to the generation of Halfbakery ideas?
-- normzone, Apr 01 2014


All your base are belong to random.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 01 2014


I really, really want to bun this idea for originality despite the fact that it's not even remotely a solution to the problem proposed.

So I will.
-- Voice, Apr 01 2014


Yeah, Voice. I agree. I come to the HB more for originality than for functionality.
-- sophocles, Apr 01 2014


marked-for-tagline

" it's not even remotely a solution to the problem proposed "
-- normzone, Apr 01 2014


100! is significantly more than 10 in most sensible bases.
-- pocmloc, Apr 02 2014


Different OK, but not random.

Base 2 on Mondays, Base 8 on Wednesdays, Base 16 on Fridays. Might work. Certainly would provide work for software coders for a year or two.

It would not benefit the 99cents only store. Their whole store is built on the fact people will buy a lot of anything marked 99 cents.
-- popbottle, Apr 25 2017


What you didn't explain, [hippo], is why it would be a good idea to lose the attachment to certain numbers. Whom, in short, would it benefit?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 25 2017


What?! - You're saying that ideas have to benefit someone now?!! That's a bit much.

I suppose the reasoning was that if values of things were true, rather than being artificially constrained by people's attachment to certain numbers then markets would be more efficient and the more accurate correspondence of price to value would benefit people. The random number base was proposed as a mechanism to separate the numerical representation of value from actual value.
-- hippo, Apr 26 2017



random, halfbakery