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Comments

• [1] Jennifer F from Sacramento, CA October 07, 2009 - 06:40PM

  This episode was totally engrossing. I only wish I'd ever turned any of my random, maddening numbers obsessions into a "law."

  Thanks for this show - loved it.

  
  
• [2] Chris Reyes from Sebastopol, CA October 12, 2009 - 04:20PM

  Hello Mark Migrini, don't forget about this possibility: If you see a low amount on another gas pump, it *could* be from a cash-strapped teenager, but it could also be a motorcycle that needs only a fraction of what an automobile needs.

  Oh, and be careful for motorcycles and bicycles. I ride both...

  
  
• [3] Paula Caraballo from Queens, New York October 12, 2009 - 05:26PM

  I really enjoyed this program. I find math fascinating and scary. I am currently enrolled in college (online)and have a remedial math class so naturally, your talk caught my attention. I agree that you cannot live without numbers I have focused on getting jobs based on how much math I needed to know. I worked in some aspect of bookeeping/accounting for the first four years of my professional life. At age 49 I am trying to beat my fear of math which reduces my mind to chaotic confusion until I just give up and just guess the answers. But I have managed to pass some math classes post high school and even understand your basic accounting. Paul Erdos and Benfords law will probably find their way into my class at some point.

  
  
• [4] Steve from Morristown October 16, 2009 - 04:01PM

  I've used Benfords Law as a bundled application in some powerful data mining software to discover payroll fraud.

  
  
• [5] Akenji Ndumu from Bowie, MD October 22, 2009 - 02:34AM

  This was a fantastic show. My father is a mathematician, and during the Erdos segment, it hit me, I have no idea what this man does! No idea of what the heat kernels or eigenvalues of 3 spheres he speaks of are. As a first step towards that understanding, I think I am going to try to find his Erdos number....

  
  
• [6] David Pearce from Washington, D.C. October 25, 2009 - 06:53PM

  I'm still listening to the show here in D.C., at 6:47 p.m. and I thought you were going to relate the Bendford Rule and the Erdos number, but I don't think you are.

  However, it seems to my VERY untrained ear as if the Erdos numbers do sort of follow the Benford Rule.

  I.E., at first the numbers are big, though not in order (one is not bigger than two, etc.). By the five and six numbers, the amount of these is very large, i.e., robust.

  And yet the numbers after six (I think) go down, which goes against the "robustness" of the lower Erdos numbers, yet seems to follow the Benford Rule.

  Will someone comment to set me straight?

  
  
• [7] David Pearce from Washington, D.C. October 25, 2009 - 06:55PM

  I like the Wiki quote which notes that Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems"

  
  
• [8] Stephen Grimes from Philadelphia November 17, 2009 - 03:43PM

  David, I think there's every reason to belief that the distribution of Erdős numbers follows Benford's Law. However, the trouble in verifying this is that people with Erdős numbers greater than 6 either can't calculate it, don't wish to report it, are embarrassed it isn't lower, or are in a profession so distant from mathematics they have no reason to care! Hence in practice only a non-random subset of Erdős numbers are ever reported.

  By the way Radio Lab, it's Erdős, not Erdös!! I enjoyed the show!

  
  
• [9] Angus from Davis, California November 24, 2009 - 06:57PM

  Referring to the use of Benford's law to discover fraud. In order for this to work, numbers generated through purposeful human deception (i.e. me making up a fake salary), and those generated through more genuine means (i.e. the real salary that my boss decides to give me) must be fundamentally different. I am aware that consciously forged numbers probably differ from Benford's law, and possibly approach actual randomness. However, wouldn't all the permutations that occur on any tax form (subtract paid taxes, consider dependents, adding in other income, etc) eventually make my "fake" salary follow Benford's law?