Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 218701 (2008) [4 pages]Empirical Tests of Zipf’s Law Mechanism in Open Source Linux DistributionReceived 30 June 2008; published 19 November 2008 Zipf’s power law is a ubiquitous empirical regularity found in many systems, thought to result from proportional growth. Here, we establish empirically the usually assumed ingredients of stochastic growth models that have been previously conjectured to be at the origin of Zipf’s law. We use exceptionally detailed data on the evolution of open source software projects in Linux distributions, which offer a remarkable example of a growing complex self-organizing adaptive system, exhibiting Zipf’s law over four full decades. © 2008 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.218701
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.218701
PACS:
89.75.Da, 02.50.Ey, 89.20.Ff
|
|
About | Terms and Conditions | Subscriptions | Search | Help
Use of the American Physical Society websites and journals implies that the user has read and agrees to our Terms and Conditions and any applicable Subscription Agreement. Physical Review®, Physical Review Letters®, Reviews of Modern Physics®, and Physical Review Special Topics® are trademarks of the American Physical Society.