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

[Charles H. Davis]

As a physical scientist, I realize that the power law goes back a very
long way
and covers a variety of disciplines; however, as one who actually talked with
Derek Price, I know he hadn't fully investigated the difference between
'power'
and 'exponential' -- a non-trivial distintiction when it comes to such
matters.

In this connection please take a look (or another look) at the article Blaise
Cronin and I contributed before all this became so popular:

Davis, C. H. & Cronin, B. (1993) J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. 44, 590–592.

Thanks!

P.S. Reprints or copies available on request.
____________________________
Charles H. Davis, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow
SLIS; Informatics
Indiana University
http://mypage.iu.edu/~davisc

Quoting "Quentin L. Burrell" <quentinburrell at MANX.NET>:

> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
> Eugene
>
> Many thanks for this.
>
> I contacted Mark Newman and you can find this among his other publications
> at
>
>  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/pubs.html
>
> It is a survey article and - after a quick look - seems worth further study.
> I particularly liked the fact that he acknowledges that these laws usually
> apply only to the upper tails of the distributions to which they are
> applied. This is a point that has always worried me in informetric
> applications where people are too quick to claim a straight line in the
> log-log graph.
>
> Incidentally, Derek Price's foundation paper is mentioned but nothing else
> from the informetrics field! We need greater impact!
>
> Seasonal greetings to all
>
> Quentin
>
> **********************************
> Dr Quentin L Burrell
> Isle of Man International Business School
> The Nunnery
> Old Castletown Road
> Douglas
> Isle of Man IM2 1QB
> via United Kingdom
>
> www.ibs.ac.im
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eugene Garfield" <garfield at CODEX.CIS.UPENN.EDU>
> To: <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 9:16 PM
> Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Newman, MEJ "Power laws, Pareto distributions and
> Zipf's law" Contemporary Physics 46 (5). SEP-OCT 2005. p.323-351
>
>
>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>
>> 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
>>
>> Publisher: TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 4 PARK SQUARE, MILTON PARK, ABINGDON OX14
>> 4RN, OXON, ENGLAND
>> Subject Category: PHYSICS, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
>> IDS Number: 958FQ
>>
>> ISSN: 0010-7514
>