Why do power laws exist?
I have an intuitive understanding of how bell curves fall out of accumulated random events.
-Similarly, is there a simple principle causing power laws to appear everywhere?
-How can we predict that something will follow a power law distribution?
Conversation
Replying to
Per Bak, Self-Organized Criticality was the old classic on this. They never did find a general result like central limit theorem iirc, only local constitutive laws and mechanisms like preferential attachment. Graphs, sand piles etc all have local explanations. No grand theory.
Do you have any recommended reading material for this? I'm interested in the question - what makes certain domains amenable to power laws vs not.
2
I just gave you a ref, the Per Bak book 🙂
Dated and a bit controversial now, but classic.
The field basically stagnated after the networks research of ~2000 (Barabasi book is key ref there)
Finding power laws was a cottage industry through 90s. Then there was a backlash
1
3
Show replies


