Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law

被引：3454
作者：
Newman, MEJ [1 ]
机构：
[1] Univ Michigan, Dept Phys, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
[2] Univ Michigan, Ctr Study Complex Syst, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
来源：
CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS | 2005年 / 46卷 / 05期
基金：
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词：
D O I：
10.1080/00107510500052444
中图分类号：
O4 [物理学];
学科分类号：
0702 ;
摘要：
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.
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页码：323 / 351
页数：29
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