Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Zipf's law, and power laws in general, have attracted and continue to attract considerable attention in a wide variety of disciplines—from astronomy to demographics to software structure to economics to linguistics to zoology, and even warfare. A recent model of random group formation (RGF) attempts a general explanation of such phenomena based on Jaynes' notion of maximum entropy applied to a particular choice of cost function . In the present paper I argue that the specific cost function used in the RGF model is in fact unnecessarily complicated, and that power laws can be obtained in a much simpler way by applying maximum entropy ideas directly to the Shannon entropy subject only to a single constraint: that the average of the logarithm of the observable quantity is specified.
Source: New Journal of Physics
Author: Matt Visser
Institution: Victoria University of Wellington
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,610
Funders: Royal Society Te Apārangi, Marsden Fund
OpenAlex ID: W2121300779