Interesting "Laws"

[ZenGum]

Hey, UT, how hard/easy would it be to analyse the cellar threads in terms of the number of posts? Then analyse that data in terms of the first digit? We could check this law on ourselves.

Lamplighter, remember that we are only focusing on the first digit. Lets take the number of posts in a thread as an example. To keep it simple I'll pretend that threads can't have more than 999 posts, but I'll explain later how to deal with the fact that they can.

Any thread with 1, 11, 12, 13, 14, ... 19, 100, 101, 102 ... etc goes in the "starts with a 1" category.

Threads with 2, 20, 21, 22 ... 29, 200, 201 ... etc will go in the "starts with a 2" category.

We could continue this all the way to 9, and the possibility of any starting digit seems equal.

BUT! In reality, many threads have only a single post, or just a handful. Many struggle into the teens or twenies before they die. Fewer make it into the 30s and 40s, still fewer into the 80s and 90s. This means that there will be more thread totals starting with a 1 than any other digit.

The same pattern happens whe we consider the 100s and 200s and so on.

And if we want to go past 999 posts, the same pattern will apply. 1,000 to 1,999 all start with 1, and so on. It is the same pattern as before.

In a sentence: thread post counts will usually start with lower digits because threads die before they can get to the higher digits.


Well, that is how it is for things like thread post counts. Here, they grow from one upwards without missing a step. You have to go through 1 to get to 2, and you might stop along the way, which is why there are more 1s than 2s. You have to go through the teens before you get to the 20s, and you might stop on the way, so again there are more 1s than 2s.

However, the case with things like river lengths is different, or at least it seems different to me. You can have a 2 mile river without there being a 1 mile river, so there is no risk of "stopping along the way". So the frequency of 1s and 2s in things like this is ... umm ... not explained in the way it is for thread post totals.

In fact, I cannot explain it and have never heard of a good explanation. It just is. And you'd think that changing the units of measurement - yards to feet, for example, should shift the results, since a 1 yard river is a 3 foot river ... but it doesn't, since all those 0.34 yard rivers are now 1.1 foot rivers.

It's freaking weird, now that I come to think of it.