Benford’s Law Strikes Back: No Simple Explanation in Sight for Mathematical Gem

Benford’s Law Strikes Back: No Simple Explanation in Sight for Mathematical Gem

The widely known phenomenon called Benford's Law continues to defy attempts at an easy derivation. Here, Berger and Hill briefly review recurring flaws in "back-of-the-envelope" explanations of the law, and then analyzes in more detail some of the recently published attempts, many of...

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Veröffentlicht in:The Mathematical intelligencer 2011-03, Vol.33 (1), p.85-91
Hauptverfasser: Berger, Arno, Hill, Theodore P.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Errors
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical and Computational Engineering
Mathematical and Computational Physics
Mathematical functions
Mathematical Methods in Physics
Mathematics
Mathematics and Statistics
Numerical and Computational Physics
Probability
Simulation
Theoretical
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Zusammenfassung:The widely known phenomenon called Benford's Law continues to defy attempts at an easy derivation. Here, Berger and Hill briefly review recurring flaws in "back-of-the-envelope" explanations of the law, and then analyzes in more detail some of the recently published attempts, many of which replicate an apparently unnoticed error in Feller's classic 1966 text An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications.
ISSN:0343-6993
1866-7414
DOI:10.1007/s00283-010-9182-3