Frank Benford
Frank Albert Benford junior (born May 29, 1883 in Johnstown , Pennsylvania , USA , † December 4, 1948 in Schenectady , New York ) was an American electrical engineer and physicist .
After studying at the University of Michigan , which he completed with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, he worked for General Electric from 1910 to 1948 as an engineer and physicist in the Illuminating Engineering Laboratory and from 1928 in the central research laboratory in Schenectady. There he dealt with optical measurements and instruments, for example in 1937 he invented a method for measuring the refractive index of glasses. He has produced many publications and 20 patents on optical measurements. He died a few months after his retirement in July 1948.
But Benford became known mainly through the Benford law named after him . This by Simon Newcomb in logarithms discovered distribution frequency of digits in multi- and single-digit numbers, he reached up and generalized it to all decimal numbers. Logarithm tables were also the starting point for him. He published the law in 1938.
In 1909 he married Georgia Rattray.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Benford, The law of anomalous numbers, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 78, 1938, pp. 551-572
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Benford, Frank |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Benford, Frank Albert Junior (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American electrical engineer and physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 29, 1883 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Johnstown , Pennsylvania , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th December 1948 |
| Place of death | Schenectady , New York |