Chapter 6 discusses the fascinating theory called 'Benford's Law'. To see if Benford's Law has merit, I experimented with the following data. You can find the results in the following spreadsheets.
Benford's Law Experiments
Benford's Law Demonstration - Country Sizes Cook Islands 91 9 Costa Rica 19,700 Cote d'Ivoire 124,504 Croatia 21,851 Cuba 42,427 Curacao 171 Cyprus 3,572 3 Czech Republic 30,450 3 Democratic Republic of the Congo 905,355 9 Denmark 16,639 1 Djibouti 9,000 9 Dominica 290 2 Dominican Republic 18,792 East Timor 5,743 5 Ecuador 98,985 Egypt 387,000 El Salvador 8,124 Equatorial Guinea 10,831 Eritrea 45,400 Estonia 17,462 Ethiopia 426,400 4 Falkland Islands 4,700 Faroe Islands 538 Federated States of Micronesia 271 Fiji 7,055 Finland 130,666 France 247,219 2 French Polynesia 1,500 French Southern and Antarctic Lands 2,875 2 Gabon 103,347 Georgia 26,900 Germany 137,882 Ghana 92,098 Gibraltar 2 Greece 50,949 Greenland 836,330 Grenada 133 1 Guam 212 Guatemala 42,042 4 Guernsey 30 3 Guinea 94,926 9 Guinea-Bissau 13,948 1 Guyana 83,000 8 Haiti 10,710 Honduras 43,433 Hong Kong 426 4 Hungary 35,918Benford's Law Demonstration - Country Sizes Sierra Leone 27,700 Singapore 270 HINN Sint Maarten 13 Slovakia 18,933 Slovenia 7,827 Solomon Islands 11,157 Somalia 246,201 South Africa 471,445 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands 1,507 W HD South Korea 38,544 South Sudan 239,285 Spain 195,365 UNHN Sri Lanka 25,330 Sudan 718,723 Suriname 63,250 6 Svalbard and Jan Mayen 24,101 N Swaziland 6,704 6 Sweden 173,860 1 Switzerland 15,937 Syria 71,500 7 Tajikistan 55,300 UT Tanzania 364,900 3 Thailand 198,120 The Bahamas 5,383 5 The Gambia 4,361 Togo 21,925 2 Tokelau 5 Tonga 288 2 Trinidad and Tobago 1,980 Tunisia 63,170 WO H Turkey 302,535 Turkmenistan 188,500 W H Turks and Caicos Islands 366 Tuvalu 10 Uganda 93,260 Ukraine 233,000 2 United Arab Emirates 32,300 3 United Kingdom 93,800 9 United States 3,717,813 3 United States Virgin Islands 134 Uruguay 68,037 6 Uzbekistan 172,700 1 Vanuatu 4,706 Vatican City 0 Venezuela 352,140 Vietnam 127,882 1 Wallis and Futuna 55 5 Western Sahara 103,000 Yemen 203,850 HNN Zambia 290,585 Zimbabwe 150,872Benford's Law Demonstration -- Country Sizes Actual Digit Occurences Benford's Law Percentage Prediction 77 33% 30% IN 41 18% 18% W 29 12% 12% 28 12% 10% 5 11 5% 8% 12 5% 7% 7 12 5% 5% 8 9 4% 5% 15 6% 5% Total: 234 100% 100% 35% 30% 25% 20% Actual Percentage 15% Benford's Law Prediction 10% 5% 0% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
