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Curious Mathematical Law Is Rife In Nature
New Scientist ^
| Thursday, October 14, 2010
| Rachel Courtland
Posted on 10/16/2010 5:27:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
What do earthquakes, spinning stellar remnants, bright space objects and a host of other natural phenomena have in common? Some of their properties conform to a curious and little known mathematical law, which could now find new uses.
A subject of fascination to mathematicians, Benford's law states that for many sets of numbers, the first or "leading" digit of each number is not random. Instead, there is a 30.1 per cent chance that a number's leading digit is a 1. Progressively higher leading digits get increasingly unlikely, and a number has just a 4.6 per cent chance of beginning with a 9 (see diagram).
The law is named after physicist Frank Benford, who in 1938 showed that the trend appears in many number sets, from the surface area of rivers to baseball statistics to figures picked randomly from a newspaper. It later emerged that such distributions are "scale-invariant": if you convert the units of the numbers in the set, from metres to yards, say, the set will still conform to Benford's law.
Not all sets of numbers obey this law, but it crops up surprisingly often. As a result, mathematicians have put it to work, using deviations from it to detect cases of tax fraud, voter fraud and even digital image manipulation.
Now Malcolm Sambridge of the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues have extended the list of natural phenomena with properties that follow Benford's law. Their new list includes the depths of almost 250,000 earthquakes that occurred worldwide between 1989 and 2009, the brightness of gamma rays that reach Earth as recorded by the Fermi space telescope, the rotation rates of spinning star remnants known as pulsars, and 987 infectious disease numbers reported to the World Health Organization in 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: benfordslaw; stringtheory
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Even pulsars follow Benford's law (Image: NASA)
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Natural law?
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1
posted on
10/16/2010 5:27:29 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Rurudyne; steelyourfaith; Tolerance Sucks Rocks; xcamel
I wonder if it crops up in University of East Anglia emails?
2
posted on
10/16/2010 5:28:21 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: AdmSmith; bvw; callisto; ckilmer; dandelion; ganeshpuri89; gobucks; KevinDavis; Las Vegas Dave; ...
3
posted on
10/16/2010 5:28:47 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: SunkenCiv
4
posted on
10/16/2010 5:32:00 PM PDT
by
Raycpa
To: SunkenCiv
5
posted on
10/16/2010 5:35:05 PM PDT
by
Quix
(Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
To: SunkenCiv
One IS the lonliest number.
To: SunkenCiv
So, we've hacked God's PIN #. Starts with a one, and less than 4% chance the second one is a nine. 14xx.
What's the next clue? Any of the two numbers equals a prime?
BTW, what do we do with it when we get it, besides realize that it's His PIN #?
/johnny
To: SunkenCiv
if you convert the units of the numbers in the set, from metres to yardsWell yes, picking units which are nearly equal to each other does help.
8
posted on
10/16/2010 5:37:39 PM PDT
by
eclecticEel
(Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: 7/4/1776 - 3/21/2010)
To: SunkenCiv
Do the percentages change if the number system is other than base 10? I presume they would have to.
To: SunkenCiv
Someone let me know if they figure out how to pick winning lottery numbers.
10
posted on
10/16/2010 5:40:34 PM PDT
by
Nachoman
(Think of life as an adventure you don't survive.)
To: JRandomFreeper
Well, that lets the Masons off the hook. Popular Mason conspiracies involve the digit string 195.
To: SunkenCiv
Wow. Thanks. Good one.
I've known this for, I think, 35 years when doing analysis of the early state lotteries. I never thought it to be remarkable. Didn't even know it had a name. I spent a good part of my childhood trying to figure what I knew that others did not. Stuff like the principle underlying this law. At some point I gave up on that effort.
12
posted on
10/16/2010 5:49:39 PM PDT
by
bvw
To: JRandomFreeper
If God has a PIN number, it's 1.618.
Speaking of peculiarities, I recall a scientific study from several years back, that toast actually does fall buttered side down far more frequently than not, that carrying an umbrella actually decreases the chance of getting rained upon and forgetting it increases the chance, and that it actually does rain more frequently on the weekend. The universe really is stacked against us, lol.
To: SunkenCiv
It doesn’t seem to apply to the price of cars, or houses (in US $).
14
posted on
10/16/2010 6:02:25 PM PDT
by
GregoryFul
(Obama - Jim Jones redux)
To: RegulatorCountry
I think more like pi, 3.14159
15
posted on
10/16/2010 6:05:51 PM PDT
by
GregoryFul
(Obama - Jim Jones redux)
To: JRandomFreeper
1492 ( pin hint : Ocean Blue)
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- Black Holes May Harbour Their Own Universes
- Let There Be Aluminum-42: Experiment creates surprise isotope
- Defect Suspected in Fabric of Space-Time
- A Defect in the Cosmos?
- Eve Curie Labouisse, Mother's Biographer, Dies at 102
- Scientists Generate Powerful Antimatter Ray
- Something new? It could all depend on a hyperburst three billion light years away
- High Energy Gamma Rays Go Slower Than the Speed of Light?
- [Bitpig] Science Fiction And The Future: So What?
- Mysterious Energy Burst Stuns Astronomers
- Parallel universe proof boosts time travel hopes
- Kilo prototype mysteriously loses weight
- Mysterious Solar Ripples Detected
- Dark matter behaves in an unexpected way
- Hints of a breakdown of relativity theory?
- Quantum Light Beams Good For Fast Technology (Schrödinger's cat PROVEN)
- SubQuantum Kinetics, wide ranging unifying cosmology theory by Dr. Paul LaViolette
- Greatest Mysteries: Is There a Theory of Everything?
- 'We have broken speed of light'
- Using black holes to constrain the universe
- Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society [Freeman Dyson chides global warming alarmists]
- Physicists have 'solved' mystery of levitation
- Unravelling the random fluctuations of nothing [ Martin Schnabl ]
- The real life Doctor Who who believes he can build a time machine
- Is Science Neurotic? [ book review ]
- Is dark energy lurking in hidden spatial dimensions?
- Physicists campaign to free a jailed ecoterrorist's mind [ Asperger Alibi, Ecoterrorist ]
- Moebius strip riddle solved at last(tsal ta devlos elddir pirts suibeoM)
- U.S. Theoretical Physicists Organize To Stem 'Outsourcing'
- News Ages Quickly - Scientific publishing moves into the 21st century at last
- Relativity Passes Absolute Test: Exacting research finds Einstein was exactly right
- Nice Going, Einstein
- Science and Islam in Conflict
- Echoes from Before the Big Bang May Be Inaudible
- Moon-based lasers could uncover exotic physics
- Exotic cause of 'Pioneer anomaly' in doubt
- Laser-cooling Brings Large Object Near Absolute Zero
- Astronomers May Have Solved Information Loss Paradox To Find Black Holes Do Not Form
- Physics Guy Rap
- Forget the Big Bang Theory
- NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Not Sure That Global Warming Is A Problem
- Testing the Equivalence Principle [ "Mr. Galileo was right." ]
- Pitt Researchers Create New Form of Matter
- A Two-Time Universe? Physicist Explores How Second Dimension of Time Could Unify Physics Laws
- Mysteries of dark matter and bad hair days at Mac
- Inventor runs engines on 'Proton Cell'
- Is the evidence for 'alien' universes all around us?
- Princeton physicists connect string theory with established physics
- Mad Max Tegmark's Brave New Universe
- The Man Who Made Our World [ Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson reviewed ]
- Black Holes Exhale Enormous Gas Cloud
- Physicists bid farewell to reality?
- No sign of the Higgs boson
- Reflections of Absolute Zero
- Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong
- Universal Accord {Cosmology}
- Particle collider magnet self-destructs
- String Theory, With No Holds Barred [Brian Greene and Lawrence Krauss debate]
- Math research team maps E8
- Is this the fabric of the universe?
- 248-dimension maths puzzle solved
- You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say [yaS stsitneisC ,emiT ni kcaB levarT t'naC uoY]
- Light is made of particles AND waves, not OR
- String Theory Expert Will Give Lecture at Gustavus
- South Pole Telescope achieves first light
- Giant magnet attracts big attention
- Black hole may be 'particle accelerator'
- String Theory Explains RHIC Jet Suppression
- Universe offers 'eternal feast,' cosmologist says
- For Gods And Country [ string theory and Wicca in the US military ]
- Expanding Uncertainty about the Hubble Constant
- Quantum Quirk: Stopped Laser Pulse Reappears a Short Distance Away
- Expletive repeated [ op-ed, string theory, etc ]
- Physicists find way to 'see' extra dimensions
- New particle accelerator could rule out string theory [ Large Hadron Collider ]
- No Big Bang? Endless Universe Made Possible by New Model
- Speakers on Campus: Why is the universe alive? Because this panel is here to say it is
- Physicists & philosophers present Time Travel
- Physicists Develop Test for String Theory
- Doomsday Clock: Earth To Become A Pumpkin in 5 ... 4 .... 3
- Saturn's vanishing rings, and other surprises
- Large Hadron Collider: Does every particle in the universe consist of points, strings, or loops?
- String Theory's Extra Dimensions Must Be Less Than Half the Width of a Human Hair
- Desperately seeking the Higgs boson
- Gravity detector could provide clues to the shape of the universe
- First Dark Matter, Then Dark Energy, Now a Dark Force?
- Superstrings could add gravitational cacophony to universe's chorus
- Science's Breakthrough of the Year 2006, a First for Math, but with Physics Connections
- Where science and ethics meet [ review, The Scientist as Rebel by Freeman Dyson ]
- String Theory starts to unravel
- Please, Mr. Einstein [ reviewed ]
- Preparing For The Biggest Experiment On Earth
- Are The Big Four Econ Errors Biases? [ minimum wage vs string theory ]
- The Elegant Universe comes to the web
- Siemens Competition winners are announced [ Dmitry Vaintrob, string theory ]
- Cosmologists expose flaws in anthropic reasoning
- Competing theories of the cosmos [sidebar]
- Timeless Denzel [ reviews of Deja Vu a movie with String Theory as a prop ]
- Spinning black hole pushes the speed limit
- Knit Theory
- The Theory of Everything
- Twilight of the Idols [ regarding scientist biographies, *not* the Nietzche work ]
- Why do we exist? Don't look to the stubborn string theorists
- Hubble telescope makes new discovery
- Mysterious force's long presence
- Scientists Examine 'Dark Energy' of Antigravity
- The Big Idea That Won't Die
- The Principle of Mediocrity [cosmological speculations of Alexander Vilenkin]
- Time Before Time [speculative cosmology]
- Philo Farnsworth: You may not know him, but he invented TV (He did it first, but RCA got the glory)
- String Theory 'blog
- Pluto's Planet Status / String Theory
- Elusive Proof, Elusive Prover: A New Mathematical Mystery
- Probing Question: What happened before the Big Bang?
- What if Black Holes Didn't Exist?
- The Energy of Empty Space that isn't Zero
- Why a large hadron collider?
- From the present to the past [Stephen Hawking]
- Cold Fusion -- The Sun in a bottle
- Satellite could open door on extra dimension (Universe is floating!? Black holes in Solar System!?)
- The universe before it began
- Is faster-than-light propagation allowed by the laws of physics? (a primer on Lorentzian relativity)
- Hydrino Theory, Which Overturns Quantum Theory, Is In Turn Overturned By Doofusino Theory
- MY IDEA TO SOLVE ENERGY PROBLEM
- One universe or many? Panel holds unusual debate
- The Collider Calamity
- Star Trek tricorder ready for beam up
- Oldest light shows universe grew fast, researchers say [inflationary cosmology gets a big boost]
- South Pole Detector Could Yield Signs of Extra Dimensions
- A scientific leap, but without the faith
- Supersymmetry and Parallel Dimensions [profile of Harvard physicist Lisa Randall]
- Design for Living: A theoretical physicist weighs in on a hot-button topic (Leonard Susskind)
- Is string theory in trouble?
- Is Earth In A Vortex Of Space-Time?
- Prof Ventures Into New Dimension [Lisa Randall alert!]
- Einstein's Dark Energy Accelerates the Universe
- Swirl Theory - For the "Told You So" archives.
- The Beauty of Branes [Cosmology & Lisa Randall]
- Astronomers detect most distant cosmic explosion (~13 billion years old)
- Subtle are Einstein's thoughts
- Dark matter highlights extra dimensions
- Four Keys to Cosmology
- Scientists Mess with the Speed of Light (breaking the speed limit, sort of)
- Physicists create a 'perfect' way to study the Big Bang
- New model 'permits time travel'
- The "Cartesian Split" Is a Hallucination; Ergo, We Should Get Rid of It
- Testing the gravitational inverse-square law
- How Einstein may have got the theory of relativity wrong
- The Good and Bad of String Theory
- 13 things that do not make sense
- 'Theory of everything' tying researchers up in knots
- Finding the Ultimate Theory of Everything
- Leaking Gravity May Explain Cosmic Puzzle
- Quark soup may cause cosmic flashes
- Moon measurements might explain away dark energy
- Hawking Wrong Again, Researcher Tells Mars Conference (re: wormhole time machine model.
- Escape from the universe - [wild, but fun, speculations from physicist Michio Kaku]
- String fellows - [interview with string theorist Edward Witten]
- In search of hidden dimensions
- What Was Here Before the Beginning? [Big Bang, Cosmology]
- Most Powerful Eruption in the Universe Discovered
- Strings Attached [interview with physicist Andrew Strominger]
- The Growth of Inflation [On inflationary cosmology, string theory, and all that]
- String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (Are There 10 Dimensions Of Space and Time?)
- Shiing-Shen Chern, 93, Innovator in New Geometry, Is Dead
- String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (or Not)
- Cosmic Conundrum [Brief essay on multiple universes and the Anthropic Principle]
- Scientists zero in on why time flows in one direction
- Scientists Claim To Tap The Free Energy Of Space
- Pioneer [gravitational] anomaly put to the test
- Meet the Indian who took on Stephen Hawking
- Speed of light slowing down?
- Dismantling Space and Time [Review of book by Brian Greene]
- Science as Metaphor
- The Universe Made Simple
- Evicting Einstein
- Time Can be Turned Back(Russian Tin Foil Alert)
- INFORMATION PARADOX SOLVED? IF SO, BLACK HOLES ARE "FUZZBALLS"
- String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal (Physics has hit rock bottom)
- New particle turns up in Japan
- Cosmologists say universe leaves them in the dark
- The gods must be crazy (Physics article)
- Edward Teller -- -- Father of the H-Bomb'' dies at age 95
- Amateur mathematician's time theories published at last
- Berkeley Lab Physicist Challenges Speed of Gravity Claim
- A vast cavern is the stage for tests to find the 'God particle'
- NASA Researchers Put New Spin On Einstein's Relativity Theory
- Scientific Discovery of "Rare Nuclear-Fusion Violating-Charge-Symmetry"!
- Surprise To Physicists -- Protons Aren't Always Shaped Like A Basketball!
- UC Riverside Researchers' Discovery Of Electrostatic Spin Topples Century-old Theory
- Astronomers Deal Blow To Quantum Theories Of Time, Space, Gravity
- 150 acres of dreams dashed: Buyer now sought for super-collider site
- An Introduction to Zero-Point Energy
- Gravity test confines string theory dimensions
- Extra Dimensions Showing Hints Of Scientific Revolution
- First speed of gravity measurement revealed
- "Dark Energy" Dominates The Universe
- The inner Einstein
- Did physists just mathematicall prove the existence of God?
- Gravity waves analysis opens 'completely new sense'
- Earth's magnetic field 'boosts gravity'
- Einstein's relativity theory hits a speed bump
- Inconstant Speed of Light May Debunk Einstein
- Staring into the Singularity
- Messiah: 2030/Israeli-palestinian Conflict Will Erupt Into Sixth Arab-israeli War & Be Over In 2003!
- Fast Particles Inflated Universe
- Questioning the Big Bang
- Study: Universe 13 Billion Years Old
- (Stop Press !!) The Universe is not turquoise - it's beige
- Astronomers Celebrate Reliable Measure of Dark Matter
- Physicists Advance Theory For New Class Of Quantum Phase Transition
- Physics looks for new Einstein as nature rewrites laws of universe
17
posted on
10/16/2010 6:06:10 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: Pearls Before Swine
The other commonly used number systems are binary and hexadecimal; a childhood friend of mine quite extravagantly claimed that modern decimal system mathematics was either overlooking or deliberately hiding something, and wanted to redo the whol thing from scratch using the Babylonians’ hexagesimal (base 60) system.
But anyway, I dunno. ;’)
18
posted on
10/16/2010 6:10:01 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: SunkenCiv
Computer scientists have been using this odd phenomena for some time now. Just about all computer floating point packages assume that the first number is a one, and so just throw it away. Ha! The hidden 1.
19
posted on
10/16/2010 6:10:24 PM PDT
by
GregoryFul
(Obama - Jim Jones redux)
To: Pearls Before Swine
Metrics are the result of having ten fingers.
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