Re: The Prize #3

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

Robert Creager wrote:
> I didn't expect the magnitude to work, but the error worked nicely.  Of
> course, I suspect I could fake these now that I know about this ;-)


The test of the magnitude's first digit would be thwarted by our inability to 
detect down to mag 99...  ;-)  

More seriously, there really -are- more stars as you go fainter -- which will 
bias the results of a Benford test on the first digit. I recall seeing a 
standard formula for this increase somewhere....possibly in the online 
version of Zombeck's handbook of astrophysics?

But I would expect the magnitude's second and subsequent digits to follow 
Benford's Law. Easy enough to check of course, using a trivial change to your 
SQL.




cheers,


-- 

Fraser Farrell

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