At 11:55 AM 7/12/99 -0400, Chip Lynch wrote:
>I'm not sure what the law of leading digits is, but I read this as talking
>only about base 10 numbers... so the leading digit 1 is compared to
>leading digit 2, 3, 4, ..., 9. Right? So for numbers 2^n (in Base 10),
>[or is it 2^p?] there are a lot more leading ones than one would "expect"
>naievely (you would expect 1/9 to start with "1", I imagine).
>
>Why this is, I have no idea... can someone explain?
It is also known as Benford's law and the First Digit law. You can read
about it at Eric's Treasure Trove of Math (seems to be down right now or
I'd give the URL). It would take me a few paragraphs to explain, but I'll
do it if you can't find it elsewhere.
+----------------------------------------------+
| Jud "program first and think later" McCranie |
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