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Many mathematical, man-made and natural systems exhibit a leading-digit bias, where a first digit (base 10) of 1 occurs not 11\% of the time, as one would expect if all digits were equally likely, but rather 30\%. This phenomenon is known…

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…

Many systems exhibit a digit bias. For example, the first digit base 10 of the Fibonacci numbers, or of $2^n$, equals 1 not 10% or 11% of the time, as one would expect if all digits were equally likely, but about 30% of the time. This…

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…

A sequence of real numbers (x_n) is Benford if the significands, i.e. the fraction parts in the floating-point representation of (x_n) are distributed logarithmically. Similarly, a discrete-time irreducible and aperiodic finite-state Markov…

Benford's law is a famous law in statistics which states that the leading digits of random variables in diverse data sets appear not uniformly from 1 to 9; the probability that d (d=1,...,9) appears as a leading digit is given by…

The probability that a number in many naturally occurring tables of numerical data has first significant digit $d$ is predicted by Benford's Law ${\rm Prob} (d) = \log_{10} (1 + {\displaystyle{1\over d}}), d = 1, 2 >..., 9$. Illustrations…

We found that in transition arrays of complex atomic spectra, the strengths of electric-dipolar lines obey Benford's law, which means that their significant digits follow a logarithmic distribution favoring the smallest values. This…

Fix a base B and let zeta have the standard exponential distribution; the distribution of digits of zeta base B is known to be very close to Benford's Law. If there exists a C such that the distribution of digits of C times the elements of…

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…

That the logarithmic distribution manifests itself in the random as well as in the deterministic (multiplication processes) has long intrigued researchers in Benford's Law. In this article it is argued that it springs from one common…

Benford's law is widely used for fraud-detection nowadays. The underlying assumption for using the law is that a "regular" dataset follows the significant digit phenomenon. In this paper, we address the scenario where a shrewd fraudster…

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…

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…

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…

Nature and our world have a bias! Roughly $30\%$ of the time the number $1$ occurs as the leading digit in many datasets base $10$. This phenomenon is known as Benford's law and it arrises in diverse fields such as the stock market,…

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…

Exponential growth occurs when the growth rate of a given quantity is proportional to the quantity's current value. Surprisingly, when exponential growth data is plotted as a simple histogram disregarding the time dimension, a remarkable…

Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms play a key role in the Bayesian approach to phylogenetic inference. In this paper, we present the first theoretical work analyzing the rate of convergence of several Markov chains widely used in…

Benford's Law (BL) or the Significant Digit Law defines the probability distribution of the first digit of numerical values in a data sample. This Law is observed in many naturally occurring datasets. It can be seen as a measure of…