As a soon to be CPA, these recent articles on Benford's Law fascinating. But it's funny that there's extreme skepticism around Moore's Law, but Benford's Law seems to get a free pass. Just like Moore's Law it's a law matched to empirical observations - meaning it works until it doesn't.
Benfords Law works as long as those that would mess with numbers aren't too much aware of it.
Moore's law works until you hit the limits of physics.
Benfords Law also works for the observation of various phenomena totally unrelated to human activity, so my guess is that it is here to stay. One day we will run into what we will probably call 'Moore's Wall' and then that will be that.
Comments
As a soon to be CPA, these recent articles on Benford's Law fascinating. But it's funny that there's extreme skepticism around Moore's Law, but Benford's Law seems to get a free pass. Just like Moore's Law it's a law matched to empirical observations - meaning it works until it doesn't.
Benfords Law works as long as those that would mess with numbers aren't too much aware of it.
Moore's law works until you hit the limits of physics.
Benfords Law also works for the observation of various phenomena totally unrelated to human activity, so my guess is that it is here to stay. One day we will run into what we will probably call 'Moore's Wall' and then that will be that.
That is not true, Benford's law has rigid mathematical theory behind it, it is not solely empirically grounded. It is a property of numbers.
Ref: Terence Tao: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/benfords-law-zipfs...