According to Benford's first digit law, the frequency of appearance of the first digit d taken from various sets of data is log(1+(1/d)) where d = 1, 2,…9. I present a thermodynamic derivation of this law that follows from the unbiased partitioning of a conserved quantity whose pieces may fragment and combine.

Topics
State functions, Reversible process, Entropy, Thermodynamics, Telecommunications engineering, Books, Physicists, Bibliographies, Bayesian statistics, Statistical mechanics models
© 2019 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2019
American Association of Physics Teachers
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