The power of one | Clipmarks


	The power of one

Lexica

7-20-2008 12:20 AM

210 views

tags:

math, history, cool

1 Comment |

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7-20-2008 7:21 AM

Socratoad

Lexica, you have given my feeble mind quite a workout for sooooo early of a Sunday morn. However one must never let a day go by without learning something new.

And for this I thank you.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/adcbea3f-e0ff-4b4b-b2b9-13db8e031858/A940BD8C-B818-40ED-AA7C-7FC46F1DDCC6/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg16321944.600-the-power-of-one.html" href="http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg16321944.600-the-power-of-one.html" style="font-size: 11px;">technology.newscientist.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg16321944.600-the-power-of-one.html">Known as Benford's law, it is a rule obeyed by a stunning variety of phenomena, from stock market prices to census data to the heat capacities of chemicals. Even a ragbag of figures extracted from newspapers will obey the law's demands that around 30 per cent of the numbers will start with a 1, 18 per cent with a 2, right down to just 4.6 per cent starting with a 9.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg16321944.600-the-power-of-one.html">But after years of being regarded as a mathematical curiosity, Benford's law is now being eyed by everyone from tax inspectors to computer designers—all of whom think it could help them solve some tricky problems with astonishing ease.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/A940BD8C-B818-40ED-AA7C-7FC46F1DDCC6/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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