# Benford's law: a 'sleeping beauty' sleeping in the dirty pages of logarithmic tables

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the historical neglect and subsequent resurgence of Benford's law, highlighting its status as a 'Sleeping Beauty' in scientific literature and analyzing the patterns of its recognition over time.

## Contribution

The study identifies Benford's law papers as 'Sleeping Beauties' and examines their awakening patterns and citation dynamics, revealing insights into scientific recognition processes.

## Key findings

- Benford's law papers are classified as 'Sleeping Beauties' with long periods of dormancy.
- Both original papers were awakened in 1995 by Hill's work, gaining renewed attention.
- Hill's 1995 paper is more frequently cited than the original SB papers.

## Abstract

Benford's law is an empirical observation, first reported by Simon Newcomb in 1881 and then independently by Frank Benford in 1938: the first significant digits of numbers in large data are often distributed according to a logarithmically decreasing function. Being contrary to intuition, the law was forgotten as a mere curious observation. However, in the last two decades, relevant literature has grown exponentially, - an evolution typical of "Sleeping Beauties" (SBs) publications that go unnoticed (sleep) for a long time and then suddenly become center of attention (are awakened). Thus, in the present study, we show that Newcomb (1881) and Benford (1938) papers are clearly SBs. The former was in deep sleep for 110 years whereas the latter was in deep sleep for a comparatively lesser period of 31 years up to 1968, and in a state of less deep sleep for another 27 years up to 1995. Both SBs were awakened in the year 1995 by Hill (1995a). In so doing, we show that the waking prince (Hill, 1995a) is more often quoted than the SB whom he kissed, - in this Benford's law case, wondering whether this is a general effect, - to be usefully studied.