Maybe random isn't so random

I have been accused, by those in certain quarters, of being a very random person. Anybody who looks at this blog for more than a couple of minutes will probably agree.

Well I was listening to the radio yesterday afternoon, in a semi-conscious way, and I heard something that made me wake up a bit. apparently random isn’t so random.

If you look at naturally occurring numbers or groups of numbers, they are more likely to begin with 1 than with anything else. It’s called Benford’s law and it’s real.

The guy on the radio explained that a number, say 1000 has to get twice as big before it gets to 2000, but then only has to get half again as big to get to 3000, a third as big to get to 4000, and so on. Makes sense in an illogical way.

Apparently it’s applied to the analysis of things like accounts and expenses to make sure that they are genuine and not just random collections of numbers.