Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The Curious Case of Benford’s Law

When you roll dice, all numbers have the same probability to show up (assuming that the dice aren’t loaded in any way). However, the leading digits of numbers in very large accumulated datasets—for example, the amount you pay for each household bill over the course of a year—follow a very different pattern. In such cases it is much more likely that a given number will start with one, with decreasing probability for each higher digit up to nine. This statistical phenomenon is called Benford’s law.
The Curious Case of Benford’s Law

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