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The uneven distribution of digits in numerical data, known as Benford's law, was discovered in 1881. Since then, this law has been shown to be correct in copious numerical data relating to economics, physics and even prime numbers. Although…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2009-07-28 Oded Kafri

Let $(d_n)$ be a sequence of positive numbers and let $(X_n)$ be a sequence of positive independent random variables. We provide an upper bound for the deviation between the distribution of the mantissaes of $(X_n^{d_n})$ and the Benford's…

Probability · Mathematics 2017-05-15 Nicolas Chenavier , Dominique Schneider

The occurrence of digits 1 through 9 as the leftmost nonzero digit of numbers from real-world sources is distributed unevenly according to an empirical law, known as Benford's law or the first digit law. It remains obscure why a variety of…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2019-05-02 Mingshu Cong , Congqiao Li , Bo-Qiang Ma

The scope of this paper is twofold. First, to emphasize the use of the mod 1 map in exploring the digit distribution of random variables. We show that the well-known base- and scale-invariance of Benford variables are consequences of their…

Probability · Mathematics 2013-12-24 Azar Khosravani , Constantin Rasinariu

It is well-known that sequences such as the Fibonacci numbers and the factorials satisfy Benford's Law, that is, leading digits in these sequences occur with frequencies given by $P(d)=\log_{10}(1+1/d)$, $d=1,2,\dots,9$. In this paper, we…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2021-08-10 Zhaodong Cai , A. J. Hildebrand , Junxian Li

Benford's law states that many data sets have a bias towards lower leading digits (about $30\%$ are 1s). There are numerous applications, from designing efficient computers to detecting tax, voter and image fraud. It's important to know…

Probability · Mathematics 2016-01-20 Victoria Cuff , Allison Lewis , Steven J. Miller

Feller's classic text 'An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications' contains a derivation of the well known significant-digit law called Benford's law. More specifically, Feller gives a sufficient condition ("large spread")…

Probability · Mathematics 2010-05-17 Arno Berger , Theodore P. Hill

The Prime Numbers are well-known for their paradoxical stand regarding Benford's Law. On one hand they adamantly refuse to obey the law of Benford in the usual sense, namely that of a normal density of the proportion of primes with d as the…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2016-03-29 Alex Ely Kossovsky

Benford's law predicts the occurrence of the $n^{\mathrm{th}}$ digit of numbers in datasets originating from various sources of the world, ranging from financial data to atomic spectra. It is intriguing that although many features of…

Popular Physics · Physics 2014-09-11 T. Alexopoulos , S. Leontsinis

In the literature, Benford's Law is considered for base-b expansions where b>1 is an integer. In this paper, we investigate the distribution of leading "digits" of a sequence of positive integers under other expansions such as Zeckendorf…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2023-09-04 Sungkon Chang , Steven J. Miller

We show the leading digits of a variety of systems satisfying certain conditions follow Benford's Law. For each system proving this involves two main ingredients. One is a structure theorem of the limiting distribution, specific to the…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2015-06-26 Alex V. Kontorovich , Steven J. Miller

Benford's law is an empirical law predicting the distribution of the first significant digits of numbers obtained from natural phenomena and mathematical tables. It has been found to be applicable for numbers coming from a plethora of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-09-05 Ameya Deepak Rane , Utkarsh Mishra , Anindya Biswas , Aditi Sen De , Ujjwal Sen

We explain Kossovsky's generalization of Benford's law which is a formula that approximates the distribution of leftmost digits in finite sequences of natural data and apply it to six sequences of data including populations of US cities and…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-08-16 Alex E. Kossovsky , Wayne M. Lawton

Prime numbers seem to distribute among the natural numbers with no other law than that of chance, however its global distribution presents a quite remarkable smoothness. Such interplay between randomness and regularity has motivated sci-…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2008-11-21 Bartolo Luque , Lucas Lacasa

Benford's Law predicts that the first significant digit on the leftmost side of numbers in real-life data is proportioned between all possible 1 to 9 digits approximately as in LOG(1 + 1/digit), so that low digits occur much more frequently…

Physics and Society · Physics 2020-01-22 Alex Ely Kossovsky

The first digit law, also known as Benford's law or the significant digit law, is an empirical phenomenon that the leading digit of numbers from real world sources favors small ones in a form $\log(1+{1}/{d})$, where $d=1, 2, ..., 9$. Such…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2019-08-14 Mingshu Cong , Bo-Qiang Ma

The following work is written in easy language for college level students. It shows how the first digit probabilities of a group of continuous real-valued functions can be calculated. Thus, examples explaining how the probabilities are…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2021-03-15 Irina Pashchenko

This article provides a brief overview on a range of basic dynamical systems that conform to the logarithmic distribution of significant digits known as Benford's law. As presented here, most theorems are special cases of known, more…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2025-01-27 Arno Berger , Theodore P. Hill

Benford's Law is an empirical law which predicts the frequency of significant digits in databases corresponding to various phenomena, natural or artificial. Although counter intuitive at the first sight, it predicts a higher occurrence of…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2014-06-30 Gaurav Bhole , Abhishek Shukla , T. S. Mahesh

Suppose that in a multiple choice examination the leading digit of the correct options follows Benford's Law, while the the leading digit of the distractors are uniform. Consider a strategy for guessing at answers that selects the option…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2014-05-07 Fred M. Hoppe