What is Digg?173 Comments
- LonelyTylenoL, on 05/08/2009, -3/+102This on has always been intriguing.
http://www.numberspiral.com/ - pixel34, on 05/08/2009, -3/+97Benford's law has always been pretty cool to me. It was first explained to me by looking at the log scale.
If you choose points randomly on the log scale about 30% of the time you will choose a number that begins with one. It's due to the underlying power law distribution. That's why it applies to rivers in the world. Apparently, the length of rivers follow a power law distribution. Even if you change units from miles to meters to whatever it should follow the same power law distribution, and you should see the same distribution of leading digits. - inactive, on 05/08/2009, -7/+90rime numbers
- uptwolait, on 05/08/2009, -7/+74"They found that the distribution of the leading digit in the prime number sequence can be described by a generalization of Benford’s law. In addition, this same pattern also appears in another number sequence, that of the leading digits of nontrivial Riemann zeta zeros, which is known to be related to the distribution of primes."
Geez, who DIDN'T know that!? - unrealfan, on 05/08/2009, -9/+60LOUD NOISES!!!
- 64bitllama, on 05/08/2009, -0/+50http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8N26edbqLM
This is an excellent (simple) video on benford's law. - Zaggy111, on 05/08/2009, -7/+474 8 15 16 23 42 this pattern?
- nepidae, on 05/08/2009, -3/+37Its spelled "rhyme" you moran.
- cecilpl, on 05/08/2009, -0/+32Welcome to the internet, you must be new here.
- Lagger, on 05/08/2009, -0/+24death star?
- Tiggereth, on 05/08/2009, -7/+30This is a Prime example why math can be so interesting
- Vindicoth, on 05/08/2009, -2/+23It's called meme moran.
- LonelyTylenoL, on 05/08/2009, -5/+26Man, this is the only comment that doesn't really suck.
kudos to pixel34 - marktastic, on 05/08/2009, -0/+19Rhyme Numbaz
- pixel34, on 05/08/2009, -1/+19Maybe not so much. For large sets of primes the leading digit approaches uniformity. We currently use a large set of primes for encryption keys. Thus we have little information about the first digit of the prime.
Please correct me if I am wrong. - AlphaCrow, on 05/08/2009, -0/+18One of my favorite math jokes:
'Of all the primes, 2 is the oddest' - defectDS, on 05/08/2009, -0/+17Good grief. I didn't write that. I forgot to log out of my Aunt's computer. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
- SkippyDoorknob, on 05/08/2009, -0/+15It's just the Death Star construction plans
- m3arvk, on 05/08/2009, -1/+15Even if you knew the first decimal digit you are only shaving off on the order of 3 or 4 bits from the key pair.
- defectDS, on 05/08/2009, -0/+14I AM A BIG STUPID HEAD. DIGG SUCKS!
- SALLY - fonebone, on 05/08/2009, -0/+13I understand it and it's not rocket science.
It may appear so from your average Digg comment, but not everyone on Digg is a fifteen year old pimple faced moron. Some of us actually studied things like mathematics and statistics at university. - seaDragon, on 05/08/2009, -1/+14I wish i was smart enough to understand that article.
- rickcarson, on 05/08/2009, -2/+15okay, so think of numbers as waves. You have a wave with peaks 2 apart, that is all numbers divisible by 2. You have a wave that has peaks 3 apart, that is all numbers divisible by 3. We don't have a wave for 4, because that isn't prime.
Now, when we get to a spot that has no peak, that is a new prime number, and we start a new wave. Initially the waves are quite close together: 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29
but then they get further apart
53,59,61,67,71,73,79,83,89,97
What this Benford's law seems to be talking about is how frequent the first digit is when we have series of numbers that get increasingly far apart (like compound interest, it starts off slow, but gets bigger and bigger).
Lets look at that first set of prime numbers, but sorted by first digit:
11,13,17,19
2,23,29
3
5
7
So we see the early digits (1 and 2) show up a lot more as leading digits than the others. - grimacebrown, on 05/08/2009, -2/+14I'm glad you clarified that you weren't joking... otherwise I might have mistook a simple statement as a very complex form of sarcasm.
- m3arvk, on 05/08/2009, -2/+13Someone who is into math clarify this for us.
- inactive, on 05/08/2009, -0/+11I'm a Math student currently completing his master and as such let me tell you this: this article is absolute crap.
Basically, they found a micro-pattern that sometimes somehow works. Then they plug a GBL formule and supposedly it solves prime number. This is a useless articles like hundreds of thousands written each year and they somehow managed to make it popular by involving prime number.
To make it clear: there is no such pattern and the article makes no sense. Don't let their "maths for dummies" confuse you. There is no big "revelation" in this article. - ghostofpanty, on 05/08/2009, -0/+9and so are your moms nipples but that doesnt stop people from conquering it.
- Bengals1us, on 05/08/2009, -0/+9Amazing, I think that the secrets of the universe are in math such as this.
- kimballj, on 05/09/2009, -0/+9You spoke two soon
- wildgilbert, on 05/08/2009, -0/+8Would have been dugg higher if it were the first comment...
- 64bitllama, on 05/08/2009, -0/+8 "Nothing new will emerge"? You're completely oblivious. Mathematical patterns are found amongst everything in the natural universe. The more we learn about patterns in pure mathematics, the more we can learn about the world around us. Prime numbers are especially important and more than just "ah that's interesting."
- dekuscrub, on 05/08/2009, -0/+8I don't know what we're yelling about!!!!!
- Cuongfu, on 05/09/2009, -0/+8Fat plumbaz
- kharnal, on 05/08/2009, -1/+8I never studied math and it made perfect sense to me.
A set of primes has a bias for the first digit to be most often 1 with decreasing chance for each subsequent number and 9 being the least common.
As the size of the set increases, the bias decreases. - LonelyTylenoL, on 05/08/2009, -11/+18These comments suck.
I'm not even joking, they really do. - AaronCo, on 05/08/2009, -2/+9Nod. There's a lot of things that follow a power law distribution. Everything from the financial markets to radioactive decay. Definitely an area that should be stamped "MORE RESEARCH NEEDED."
- GraceHead, on 05/08/2009, -1/+8or a kickass album cover.
- Bluethunder1, on 05/08/2009, -5/+12Dugg for rime numbers.
- JackGrinnan, on 05/08/2009, -4/+11*squeals in delight*
- rickcarson, on 05/08/2009, -0/+6They're like sub-prime numbers, only with better lawyers
- inactive, on 05/08/2009, -1/+7One of the coolest applications of Benford's law (I think), is in forensic accounting. Because the distribution of digits should conform to Benford's law , especially as n increases (central limit theorem) when a person writes a bogus cheque, the digits in the bogus cheque should stick out like a sore thumb.
- gwaggy12, on 05/08/2009, -3/+9I like having remarkably smooth regularity.
- inactive, on 05/09/2009, -0/+6Pedobear only needed to work with numbers 1 - 9. So his math skills never developed in the wilderness.
- devomedes, on 05/08/2009, -2/+8The comma goes inside the quotation marks, actually.
- d03boy, on 05/08/2009, -1/+7I read this article. Just kidding.
- mksmothers, on 05/08/2009, -1/+6Math is hard.
- SkippyDoorknob, on 05/08/2009, -0/+5Be nice to your colon and it will be nice to you!
- AlphaCrow, on 05/08/2009, -0/+5I'm also pretty sure 41 divides (41)^2 + 41 + 41...
- James8596, on 05/08/2009, -0/+5Oooo!! Pictures!!
- 64bitllama, on 05/08/2009, -1/+6That's actually a pretty simple paragraph for anybody who has experience with more than high school math. Believe it or not, some people on Digg actually attend university!
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