Re: [libreoffice-users] Benford's Law

At 21:01 14/07/2013 +0000, Toki "Jonathan" Kantoor wrote:
> On 07/13/2013 11:01 PM, Brian Barker wrote:
> > Unless I misunderstand,the formula =10^RAND() should create random 
> > variates in the range (1,10) following the law.
>
> 10^RAND generates a set of random numbers that does _not_ adhere to 
> Benford's Law.

Well, I must say you have not exactly offered much evidence for this 
assertion!  If we knew why you thought this was so, we might be able to help.

Probabilities of initial digits according to Benford's Law and 
proportions from 10 000 trials of my formula:
  1       2       3      4       5      6       7      8       9
.301  .176  .125  .097  .079  .067  .058  .051  .046
.310  .171  .126  .093  .080  .066  .059  .053  .043

How much closer would you expect these trials to get?  Have you done 
a chi-squared test?

> I need a random number generator whose output does adhere to Benford's Law.

And I wish you good luck in persuading someone to help!

Brian Barker


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