Why does Java's hashCode() in String use 31 as a multiplier?

Question

Per the Java documentation, the hash code for a String object is computed as:

s[0]*31^(n-1) + s[1]*31^(n-2) + ... + s[n-1]
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Answer 1

Goodrich and Tamassia computed from over 50,000 English words (formed as the union of the word lists provided in two variants of Unix) that using the constants 31, 33, 37, 39, and 41 will produce fewer than 7 collisions in each case. This may be the reason that so many Java implementations choose such constants.

See section 9.2 Hash Tables (page 522) of Data Structures and Algorithms in Java.