Related papers: Relations de r\'ecurrence lin\'eaires, primitivit\…

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…

There are now many theoretical explanations for why Benford's law of digit bias surfaces in so many diverse fields and data sets. After briefly reviewing some of these, we discuss in depth recurrence relations. As these are discrete…

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…

Benford's Law describes the prevalence of small numbers as the leading digits of numbers in many sets of integers. We prove a variant of Benford's law for many positive-density subsets of the primes. This follows from a more general result…

A necessary and sufficient condition ("nonresonance") is established for every solution of an autonomous linear difference equation, or more generally for every sequence $(x^\top A^n y)$ with $x,y\in \mathbb{R}^d$ and $A\in…

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…

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…

We show how Benford's Law (BL) for first, second, ..., digits, emerges from the distribution of digits of numbers of the type $a^{R}$, with $a$ any real positive number and $R$ a set of real numbers uniformly distributed in an interval $[…

Let $\{ {U_{n}\}_{n \geq 0} }$ be a non-degenerate binary recurrence sequence with positive discriminant. Let $\{p_1,\ldots, p_s\}$ be fixed prime numbers and $\{b_1,\ldots ,b_s\}$ be fixed non-negative integers. In this paper, we obtain…

Let $m$, $r$ and $n$ be positive integers. We denote by ${\bf k}\vdash n$ any tuple of odd positive integers ${\bf k}=(k_1,\dots,k_t)$ such that $k_1+\dots+k_t=n$ and $k_j\ge 3$ for all $j$. In this paper we prove that for every…

Let $\mathcal{I} \subset \mathbb{N}$ be an infinite subset, and let $\{a_i\}_{i \in \mathcal{I}}$ be a sequence of nonzero real numbers indexed by $\mathcal{I}$ such that there exist positive constants $m, C_1$ for which $|a_i| \leq C_1…

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…

Benford's law is an empirical ``law'' governing the frequency of leading digits in numerical data sets. Surprisingly, for mathematical sequences the predictions derived from it can be uncannily accurate. For example, among the first billion…

We prove connections between Zeckendorf decompositions and Benford's law. Recall that if we define the Fibonacci numbers by $F_1 = 1, F_2 = 2$ and $F_{n+1} = F_n + F_{n-1}$, every positive integer can be written uniquely as a sum of…

We provide a criterion to determine whether a real multiplicative function is a strong Benford sequence. The criterion implies that the $k$-divisor functions, where $k \neq 10^j$, and Hecke eigenvalues of newforms, such as Ramanujan tau…

We obtain explicit formulas for the solutions of the system of second-order difference equations of the form $x_{n+ 1} = \frac{x_n y_{n-1}}{y_n (a_n + b_n x_n y_{n - 1})}, \quad y_{n+1} = \frac{x_{n - 1} y_n}{x_n (c_n+d_n x_{n-1} y_n)}$,…

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…

A positive linear recurrence sequence is of the form $H_{n+1} = c_1 H_n + \cdots + c_L H_{n+1-L}$ with each $c_i \ge 0$ and $c_1 c_L > 0$, with appropriately chosen initial conditions. There is a notion of a legal decomposition (roughly,…

Deciding the positivity of a sequence defined by a linear recurrence with polynomial coefficients and initial condition is difficult in general. Even in the case of recurrences with constant coefficients, it is known to be decidable only…

We study the recursions $A(n) = A(n-a-A^k(n-b)) + A(A^k(n-b))$ where $a \geq 0$, $b \geq 1$ are integers and the superscript $k$ denotes a $k$-fold composition, and also the recursion $C(n) = C(n-s-C(n-1)) + C(n-s-2-C(n-3))$ where $s \geq…