undefined | Better HN

0 pointsrudiger14y ago0 comments

Benford's Law really only applies to numbers where the growth rate is a function of the current value (ie. exponential growth). It's not some magic property that can be applied to any dataset.

0 comments

jemfinch14y ago

This isn't true. Benford's law applies just as equally to ordinary, arithmetic growth as well. The reason Benford's law works is because a growing number spends as much time with "1" as its initial digit as it did traversing the entire previous order of magnitude. This is true true whether the growth is exponential or arithmetic or multiplicative.

rudigerOP14y ago

Arithmetic growth refers to the situation where a value increases by a constant number per period. Benford's Law applies in this case?

jemfinch14y ago

It sure does, that's why I said it did.

Consider a sequence increasing by 1 each period. Now pick a random number between 1 and 10000. Generate the sequence between 1 and your random number. It will approximately conform to Benford's law, modulo your ending number.

Benford's law is a property of growing numbers, not of any particular kind of growth.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

jemfinch14y ago

rudigerOP14y ago

Arithmetic growth refers to the situation where a value increases by a constant number per period. Benford's Law applies in this case?

jemfinch14y ago

It sure does, that's why I said it did.

Benford's law is a property of growing numbers, not of any particular kind of growth.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse