This is a technique used by American staticicians during WWII to estimate German tank production
Basically you capture a random sampling of tanks and look at the serial numbers and use this simple formula to estimate the highest serial number made:
(M-1)(S+1)/S where S is the sample size and the maximum serial number is M.
You could also use this for other things like guessing the number of registered users on a website by looking at a random sample of sequential user ID's. Perhaps this guy did just that?
Utility Mill is another wonderful Blended Technologies project.
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