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Benford's law only seems strange until you realise natural phenomena tend to express logarithmic functions while our commonly used system of counting counting a
by polynomial 15y ago
Benford's law only seems strange until you realise natural phenomena tend to express logarithmic functions while our commonly used system of counting counting and measuring is not.
It's still a bit of a brain f--- when you first encounter it. I found it easier to get using plotting tools, as opposed to aggregating lists of numbers and measurements.
- r00fus 15y agoExactly. I immediately thought it's an artifact of our base-10 system.
- polynomial 15y agoexcept that it applies to any base-n system. It's an artifact of the underlying system, not the base value.
- r00fus 15y agoWhat about base-e?
- polynomial 15y agoReally, why don't we have a transcendental numbering system? Also, I can't imagine it could make our financial markets any more irrational.
- orangecat 15y agoThat's just silly. On the other hand, base 2i would be very efficient: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-imaginary_base http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-imaginary_base