Benford’s law is an observation about the leading digits in sets of numbers that span a wide enough range and which arise “naturally”. Its most well-known claim is that the first digit tends to be 1 about 30% of the time instead of the 11.1% (1 out of 9) that one would expect. Benford’s law … Read More “What is Benford’s Law?” »
Introduction In dynamics, one frequently needs a derivative of a vector in an inertial frame of reference in order to apply Newton’s laws when it is much more convenient to express that vector in a different frame. The Basic Kinematic Equation (also known by many other, less-informative names) relates the derivatives in two frames to … Read More “What is the Basic Kinematic Equation?” »
$\pi$ is the most well-known special number, but there is also $e$. Whereas $\pi$ has the easy interpretation of being the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and everyone knows what a circle is, $e$ arises in calculus with which many people have no familiarity. Here’s something interesting… Without calculus, the closest one … Read More “What is e?” »