Benford's Law

        Pick a number, any number. Well, not just any number -- go pick one out of a book, newspaper, TV, street sign, anywhere, at random. Pick out the population of Mumbai out of the almanac.  Look up the salaries of executives in your town.  Root through your neighbor’s trash and pull out a cancelled check, to see how much they paid for that giant gargoyle sitting in their living room.  What's the first digit of that number? Chances are, about a third of the time, that digit will be a "1". Amazingly enough, for lots of the numbers we come across in daily life, the first digit of that number is much more likely to be a “1” than a “9”. If you read that last sentence with a stifled yawn, you might as well stop reading, because it doesn't get any better. But if you're like me, you're incredulous that the the chances of getting a first digit is anything other than completely random for 1 through 9. So basically, if you're like me, you're a huge dork. Well, push up your glasses, move that stack of computer printout data over (oop, don't knock over the Mountain Dew!), and take a seat, for I'm about to relate (in a nasal voice) the tale of Benford's Law, the law of probabilities for the first digit of lots of common numbers.