Have you ever noticed that a disproportionate amount of numbers start with the digit one? For instance, if you were to go through a newspaper and tally up the numbers that appear there, you'd find that about 30% of them start with a one. Why is it 30%? This odd phenomenon continues with the other digits – about 16% of numbers start with a two, and smaller and smaller proportions until you get to nine. What's going on here?
The first person to study this was a fellow named Frank Benford, and the proportions above are said to follow “Benford's Law”. If you follow the news carefully, you may recognize Benford's Law, as it was used last year to prove that the election results from Iran were faked – the returns should have followed Benford's law, but they did not.
If you'd like to understand more about both what Benford's Law actually is (it's a bit more complex than the simple version I gave above), and especially why it is, here's an easy-to-understand explanation.
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