View Complete Reference

Volcic, A (1996)

The First Digit Problem and Scale-Invariance

In: P. Marcellini, G. Talenti and E. Vesentini (eds), Partial differential equations and applications: collected papers in honor of Carlo Pucci. Marcel Dekker, pp. 329-340 .

ISSN/ISBN: Not available at this time. DOI: Not available at this time.



Abstract: If we classify an extensive collection of numerical data expressed in decimal form according to the first significant digit, the nine resulting classes are not usually of the same size. The American astronomer Simon Newcomb was the first to write about this phenomenon in 1881. He observed that the pages in well-used tables of logarithms tend to get quite dirty in the front, whereas the last pages stay relatively clean. F. Benford provided in 1938 for empirical evidence and the law (also known to Newcomb) pk =log10 (k+1)/k, 1≤k≤9, is named after him.


Bibtex:
@InCollection{, Author = {Aljo\v{s}a {Vol\v{c}i\v{c}}}, Title = {{The first digit problem and scale-invariance.}}, BookTitle = {{Partial differential equations and applications. Collected papers in honor of Carlo Pucci on the occasion of his 70th birthday}}, ISBN = {0-8247-9698-5/pbk}, Pages = {329--340}, Year = {1996}, Publisher = {New York, NY: Marcel Dekker}, Language = {English}, MSC2010 = {60A10}, Zbl = {0853.60002} }


Reference Type: Book Chapter

Subject Area(s): Measure Theory