Massive Giveaway: Guess the Number, Win a Book

In a case of poor communication between publicists, I have ended up with not one but two advance copies of Massive by Ian Sample, a forthcoming book about the Higgs Boson. As I barely have time to read one, I don't remotely need two; thus, I will dispose of one with a really simple contest:

I am thinking of an integer between 0 and 1000 (inclusive). The person who comes closest to guessing the number by midnight Eastern time Friday, November 5 wins a copy of Massive.

Leave your guess in the comments. One entry per commenter, please. In the event that two or more people choose the same winning number, the tie will be broken based on the time stamp on the comment, so get your guess in quickly. The winner will be announced on Saturday, and contacted by email to the address left with the comment, so please provide a legitimate email address.

More like this

Last week's guess-the-number contest for my spare copy of Massive by Ian Sample generated over 150 comments. So, who won? Well, I said at the time: I am thinking of an integer between 0 and 1000 (inclusive). The person who comes closest to guessing the number by midnight Eastern time Friday,…
This wooden box sits on top of my dresser, and every afternoon when I come home, I dump the change from my pockets into it. It's getting close to full, as you can see: I've got a couple of extra galley proofs kicking around, so here's a contest: Guess the total dollar value of the change in this…
I have been sufficiently out of it that I didn't realize the Nobel Prizes were due to be announced this coming week. Which means there's only a small amount of time to get my traditional betting pool set up... So, here are the rules: 1) To enter, leave a comment to this post specifying the Prize…
As you can see from the picture, my desk is a mess. Also, I've come into possession of a second free copy of Paul Davies's new book Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life (one is an advance reading copy in trade paper, the other a spiffy new hardback). You can read my lukewarm…

1000

By Tyra Herting (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

550.

By Evan Berkowitz (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

111. Not to horn in on ralmon's guess, but it's the number of millions of records returned if you Google "Massive."

K

314

By Jim Cliborn (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

888

I'm surprised that this early the first two numbers I thought of were already taken.

2468.

I enjoy leaving comments and playing guessing games, but don't really want the book.

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

256

By Grad Student (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

925

I pass on the book, I already know the ending of this story - Higgs boson is a delusion ;)

731

By Nicholas H. (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

0 (need to add more text to allow the comment to go through)

print sorted([ [sum( [abs(x-n) for n in [343, 1000, 756, 117, 115, 550, 622, 331, 137, 738, 314, 781, 657, 42, 888, 18, 707, 227, 20, 115, 12, 89, 599, 1000, 272, 666, 483, 256]] ),x] for x in range(1000)], key=lambda x:-x[0] )[0][1]

My entry is 999 (maximal absolute linear distance to all previous (except 2468) entries. Please consider this only if you would be willing to ship to Europe (-;

Cheerio

5. Here's why: The number of Higgs Bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric Extension of the Standard Model is five. So, if I win, I want to win with irony.

By Emory Kimbrough (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

199. Oooh, I hope I'm close!

815

By Cam the Canuck (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

42 - It's the answer

668 - the neighbor of the beast.

70 (the UK speed limit)

By SciFiRocks (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

13 (Come on, lucky 13!)

I'm in France, but if you'd rather not ship to Europe (understandably) I can give you a US address and pick it up on my next trip there. :)

570

By ScienceAndHonor (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

820

By Margaret S. (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

431, since the current distribution is a bit light on 400s.

By fizzchick (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

Ha! I almost put 120.

642

By Michelle Marie (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

472

By Sharon Levy (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

753

By Karen Pike Davis (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

420

By Galen Evans (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

422, please!

By tbird49er (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

620

By Susan Ferguson (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

yikes...looks like my guess got scooped early. Amending to 614

479

Hooray for primes!

525 - how can this lovely number not have been picked yet ?

361

By Michael Norrish (not verified) on 03 Nov 2010 #permalink

69. The only number I can easily remember left :-).

By damigiana (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

321 nightjar_flying[at]yahoo.co.uk

It's already been taken, but I figured since tomorrow is my birthday I have to go with 115. : ) (Yes, I'm shamelessly trying to score extra points.) : )

97

By Excited State (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

6 - the number of a free man

By natural cynic (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

272

By Jim Petiprin (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

180

(One hundred and EIGHHHHTEEEEE)!

By Roy Macarthur (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

711

According to random.org .

666
After the election it is the only number I can come up with.

280

(the geometric mean of all the unique entries so far)

(lol)

37

By August Pamplona (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

148...no wait...837...no, I'll stick with 148.

432

By Christopher (not verified) on 04 Nov 2010 #permalink

375

No reason other than I like it.

This comment thread is sublime.

And 253.

Based on these:
0 0 1 1 3 3 5 6 7 7 11 12 13 19 20 23 37 42 42 42 67 69 70 70 87 89 97 111 114 115 115 115 117 118 120 124 129 136 137 147 148 153 168 180 185 199 201 222 227 253 255 256 257 266 272 280 289 301 314 317 319 321 327 331 343 357 361 375 377 397 412 418 420 422 426 431 432 446 451 466 472 479 483 500 525 526 550 555 556 570 576 586 599 608 614 618 620 622 627 628 635 642 657 666 666 666 668 672 682 697 704 707 711 714 726 731 732 736 738 738 739 748 753 756 777 781 796 800 815 818 820 842 863 888 897 909 909 925 944 978 998 999 1000 1000

The numbers 961, 240, 875, 512, 54, and 538 look decreasingly pretty, any takers?

Random.org gave me 108 and it seems no one else has 108 so 108 it is!

By Stephen Lau (not verified) on 05 Nov 2010 #permalink