The Method In The Madness

Hey everyone,

Today I am here to tell you about a theorem that I discovered lately. No… no… I did not come up with this theorem, I just found out about it recently. It’s called ‘Benford’s Law’ or ‘The First Digit Law’ and I heard about it on a show I recently started watching on Netflix called Connected.

What is Benford’s Law?

So, the law states that “in many naturally occurring collection of numbers, the leading digit is likely to be small”. That is, when you take numerical data sets (like the population of cities, size of planets and galaxies, and so on and so forth), most of those numbers (about 30%) would begin with the digit 1, while only very few of those numbers (less than 5%) would begin with the digit 9.

Logically or mathematically, the probability of each digit occurring in the first position should be around 11.1%, but it is not.

After 30% of the numbers starting with 1, 17.5% of the numbers would start with 2 and this percentage keeps decreasing until it reaches nine. Thus, the first digits of all naturally occurring data sets form a perfect decreasing curve (the graph in the above image).

The reason this law is so important in data science, is that it can help in fraud detection and catching anomalies in pretty much any space that has a collection of numbers. Here’s a link for you in case you want to learn more about how Benford’s law can be used in fraud detection.

The Method in the Madness

But the reason that this law blew my mind and found a place here, in this blog, is that it is more proof that the universe is conscious and that it guides you. How else would you explain that this law occurs in all natural numerical data sets?

You see, this law is true in the case of taxes, votes, populations, sizes of water bodies, volcanoes and galactic bodies, and so much more. This means that your choices to vote for someone or even to move from one city to another follows this law ultimately.

In a way, it seems to coincide free will and destiny, though I may be taking it too far with this. I’m not sure. 😛

I would, however, say that as chaotic as life seems to be there is actually a method to the madness, and that there is a higher consciousness guiding you, even if you are not aware of it.

But as the Buddha said, you don’t have to believe anything I say until you experience it. So go ahead and do your own research and experiment, and find your own way. That is always the best.

For a start, be sure to look up Connected on Netflix. It is a documentary series, and the host of the show, Latif Nasser, does a rather good job of explaining how everything is connected in more ways than one (hence the name).

That’s it for today… Until next time folks!!