PopularScience: Digits and their Distribution or How Cheater Can Be Detected

All information, all data - is digits. And how to detect fake financial report by using digits properties?

Today I would like to tell you about one interest fact from Probability Theory and Statistics. It's called Benford's law.

Firstly let's talk about basis concepts. We have to analyze series of numbers (set of samples) and we need to clearly understand what Distribution Function is. I guess many of you already know what is it and that's why I get straight to the point. If you don't know you can find extensive article on Wikipedia.

The main topic of my article - Benford's Distribution:

Benford's Law says that first digits of equally distributed integers are distributed with according to Benford's Distribution. It's mean that most likely to meet integer number with first digit equal to "1".

You probably can think: "It's just numbers and digits! How to apply it?". Keep calm. Everyone and everything has its mission.

Nowadays this law is used for checking financial reports. People noticed that the numbers in true financial reports are distributed according to Benford's law. And if the distribution does not match, then this is a good reason to think... Here you can look through interesting statistics.

One more example

How can you see there is almost clear correlation of completely different things.

Thank you for reading me, hope it was interesting! Follow me and be sure to ask questions.