Re: The Prize #3

[Fraser Farrell <fraser@trilobytes.com.au>]

tom wrote:
> 6) The improvement must be real.  We Will figure out a way to test the
> result. In other words, no hidden code that makes the result look good.


One useful check of the numbers would be a test for conformance with Benford's 
Law. Which nowadays is widely used to check for fraud involving massive 
collections of numbers. For an introduction, read these:

 http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BenfordsLaw.html

 http://www.intuitor.com/statistics/Benford's Law.html

 http://www.rexswain.com/benford.html


This mathematical Benford's Law is distinct from Greg Benford's "law of 
controversy", which is generally stated as:

"Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information 
available."

Which might describe some of the recent discussions of errors here?



cheers,


-- 

Fraser Farrell

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