Benford's Law: Can it Negate Cheating?

Imagine that you begin your day at an auction, purchasing a myriad of equipment for your laboratory. You then spend the afternoon recording data on the radioactive half-life of uranium, and you end the evening by looking at your tax return. The prices you paid for the auction items, the values comprising your research data and the depressing numbers on your tax return all follow a pattern called Benford's law. Benford's law describes the frequency of leading digits. Lower numbers such as one or ...