STEM
How a Century-Old Mathematical Law Exposed the Greek Government TOM BAILEY
however, states that in a large set of data, the first digit of any value is most likely to be one, followed by two, followed by three and so on, and the distribution of digits is logarithmic. A real-life application of Benford’s Law can be seen as the populations of UN member states over a five-year period was recorded and analysed, with the results demonstrating Benford’s Law.
1883 saw the birth of Frank Benford in Pennsylvania, USA. Benford was a physicist and electrical engineer who studied several thousand different sets of data and gave rise to what we now know as the First Digit Law, or Benford’s Law. One might assume that the chance of each digit to ‘lead’ (be first) for any value in a set of data would be one in nine – an equal probability for each digit. Benford’s Law,
40
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker