Linux Evolution Reveals Origins of Curious Mathematical Phenomenon (PhysOrg)

PhysOrg.com summarizes a scientific paper describing how investigators used the Debian package history to verify Zipf's Law. "Using the data, they showed that the growth rates of connectivities between packages are proportional to the degree of connectivity between packages. In addition, they showed empirically that the average growth rate of the total number of links to a given package over a time interval is proportional to that time interval. Further, the variability of the total number of links to a given package increases proportionally to the square-root of time, providing a crucial test of the mechanism of stochastic proportional growth of connectivity between packages. Altogether, these characteristics are responsible for the universal distribution pattern of Zipf's law."

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