Newman, MEJ "Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law" Contemporary Physics 46 (5). SEP-OCT 2005. p.323-351

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Addresses: Newman, MEJ  :  mejn at umich.edu

TITLE:          Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law (Review,
                English)
AUTHOR:         Newman, MEJ

Source:         CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS 46 (5): 323-351 SEP-OCT 2005

Document Type: Review     Language: English
Cited References: 70      Times Cited: 0

Abstract:
When the probability of measuring a particular value of some quantity
varies inversely as a power of that value, the quantity is said to follow a
power law, also known variously as Zipf's law or the Pareto distribution.
Power laws appear widely in physics, biology, earth and planetary sciences,
economics and finance, computer science, demography and the social
sciences. For instance, the distributions of the sizes of cities,
earthquakes, forest. res, solar flares, moon craters and people's personal
fortunes all appear to follow power laws. The origin of power-law behaviour
has been a topic of debate in the scientific community for more than a
century. Here we review some of the empirical evidence for the existence of
power-law forms and the theories proposed to explain them.


Addresses: Newman MEJ (reprint author), Univ Michigan, Dept Phys, Ann
Arbor, MI 48109 USA
Univ Michigan, Dept Phys, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
Univ Michigan, Ctr Study Complex Syst, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA

E-mail Addresses: mejn at umich.edu

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Subject Category: PHYSICS, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
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ISSN: 0010-7514