Poll Results

Total votes: 3603

26: 2395 (66.5%)
56: 835 (23.2%)
17: 279 (7.7%)
138: 94 (2.6%)

Well well well.

The motivation for this poll was simply "What would happen if I did a poll which had an objectively correct answer and some incorrect answers?" Nearly all my previous polls have been either asking for opinions or demographic type data, where there is no one objectively correct answer. I was just curious to see what would happen.

The correct answer is indeed 26, as 15 seconds of research can tell you, if you didn't already know it.

I'll admit that I chose the second-most popular response, 56, because 56 is the atomic weight of the most common isotope of iron, and so many people have probably heard the combination "iron 56" at some point. So if you picked that one based on an inkling in that direction, don't feel too bad. The other two options were merely random numbers.

Even so, I find it interesting that I can ask a question for which there is an inarguably correct answer and get less than two-thirds of responses choosing that answer out of four options. It wasn't really intended to be a trick question.