The Mathematical Scientist, Applied Probability Trust, 38 (2), pp 73-85.
ISSN/ISBN: 03123685 DOI: Not available at this time.
Abstract: It is known that a large part of data in the real world has the property that the first digit 1 appears about 30% of the time, the first digit 2 appears about 17% of the time, and so on, with the first digit 9 appearing about 5% of the time. This phenomenon is known as Benford's law. In this paper we give an account of the various explanations suggested for its occurrence, and the subsequent rejection of them by others in the field. We also give an account of two recent explanations, one when the data have been growing exponentially over time, and the other where we have the situation of selecting house numbers at random from streets, with the number of houses in the street itself a random number.
Bibtex:
@article{,
title={Some aspects of the Benford law of leading significant digits},
author={Phatarfod, Ravindra},
journal={The Mathematical Scientist [P]},
volume={38},
number={2},
pages={73--85},
year={2013},
publisher={Applied Probability Trust}
}
Reference Type: Journal Article
Subject Area(s): Probability Theory