I know, I know - treadmill, bleaaghh. I wasn't wimping out of running in today's downpour (at least, that's not the only reason!) I can't cheat with intervals on the treadmill so it forces me to do what I hate. Listened to a couple of interesting Radiolab podcasts on mathematics. Thanks for pointing me in their direction, Urthbuoy!
Interesting new thing learned while running today: Benford's Rule:
"Most people intuitively believe that in any string of numbers of a naturally occurring data set each digit, one through nine, has an equal probability of being the first digit. Benford’s distribution showed that this intuition is incorrect. It is this belief and practice of the fraudster that all digits should be regular that creates data sets which evoke suspicions of fraud."
"...Benford’s probability distribution (in percent) of the first digit of any number within a database that meets the criteria described above should be as follows:
1 = 30.10
2 = 17.61
3 = 12.49
4 = 9.69
5 = 7.92
6 = 6.69
7 = 5.80
8 = 5.12
9 = 4.58"
What this means is that the first digit of a person's bank account balance is far more likely to be 1 than 9 - and this rule applies to many kinds of numerical databases. Even the IRS uses it to look for financial fraud, e.g. fake tax deductions. Cool. (And a little geeky, I guess.) (P.S. Fellow geeks should click
here.)