Comments on: Benford’s Law http://www.arbitraryuser.com/blog/2007/06/13/benfords-law/ Jonathan Endersby, Recovering Technologist Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:15:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Rian http://www.arbitraryuser.com/blog/2007/06/13/benfords-law/comment-page-1/#comment-639 Rian Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:10:39 +0000 http://www.arbitraryuser.com/blog/2007/06/13/benfords-law/#comment-639 You know, this morning before you left for work you said you were hoping to get Neil to comment on this. In my head I was think "I bet jonathan will be the first person to comment on this". Tada, I was right. That maths gene really runs in the family, eh Jonathan H? (I on the other hand, still need my fingers to count....) You know, this morning before you left for work you said you were hoping to get Neil to comment on this. In my head I was think “I bet jonathan will be the first person to comment on this”. Tada, I was right.

That maths gene really runs in the family, eh Jonathan H?

(I on the other hand, still need my fingers to count….)

]]> By: Jonathan Hitchcock http://www.arbitraryuser.com/blog/2007/06/13/benfords-law/comment-page-1/#comment-637 Jonathan Hitchcock Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:45:40 +0000 http://www.arbitraryuser.com/blog/2007/06/13/benfords-law/#comment-637 $ for i in `seq 1 160` ; do echo $i | cut -c1; done | sort | uniq -c 72 1 11 2 11 3 11 4 11 5 11 6 11 7 11 8 11 9 *gasp* The first 160 numbers stick to Benford's law! Let's go higher: $ for i in `seq 1 260` ; do echo $i | cut -c1; done | sort | uniq -c 111 1 72 2 11 3 11 4 11 5 11 6 11 7 11 8 11 9 *GASP*! It's a truism, dude. Obviously you find more numbers beginning with 1, because, like, 1 is the beginning of a larger number of lower numbers. We don't start numbering houses at 56, we start at 1, and when we get to 100, then *every* house number begins with 1. In statistical data, the numbers are not random, so there's no reason to expect them to be randomly distributed. $ for i in `seq 1 160` ; do echo $i | cut -c1; done | sort | uniq -c
72 1
11 2
11 3
11 4
11 5
11 6
11 7
11 8
11 9

*gasp* The first 160 numbers stick to Benford’s law!

Let’s go higher:
$ for i in `seq 1 260` ; do echo $i | cut -c1; done | sort | uniq -c
111 1
72 2
11 3
11 4
11 5
11 6
11 7
11 8
11 9

*GASP*!

It’s a truism, dude. Obviously you find more numbers beginning with 1, because, like, 1 is the beginning of a larger number of lower numbers. We don’t start numbering houses at 56, we start at 1, and when we get to 100, then *every* house number begins with 1.

In statistical data, the numbers are not random, so there’s no reason to expect them to be randomly distributed.

]]>