University of Alberta preprint; posted on math arXiv 14May 2010.
ISSN/ISBN: Not available at this time. DOI: Not available at this time.
Abstract: Feller’s classic text An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications contains a derivation of the well known significant-digit law called Benford’s law. More specifically, Feller gives a sufficient condition (“large spread”) for a random variable X to be approxi- mately Benford distributed, that is, for log10 X to be approximately uniformly distributed modulo one. This note shows that the large-spread derivation, which continues to be widely cited and used, contains serious basic errors. Concrete examples and a new inequality clearly demonstrate that large spread (or large spread on a logarithmic scale) does not imply that a random variable is approximately Benford distributed, for any reasonable definition of “spread” or measure of dispersion.
Bibtex:
@ARTICLE{,
author = {Berger, Arno and Hill, Theodore P.},
title = "{Fundamental Flaws in Feller's Classical Derivation of Benford's Law}",
journal = {ArXiv e-prints},
archivePrefix = "arXiv",
eprint = {1005.2598},
year = 2010,
month = may,
}
Reference Type: Preprint
Subject Area(s): Statistics