453 research outputs found
Berezovsky number
Berezovsky number is defined analogously to Erdos number. Berezovsky network
is investigated
Bernoulli effect in superconductors and Cooper-pair mass spectroscopy
Recently Mishonov (Phys. Rev. B {\bf 50}, 4009 (1994)) suggested to measure
the Cooper-pair effective mass using current-induced contact potential
difference in superconductors. In this Comment it is shown that actual
experiments can be substantially simplified
Abstract art grandmasters score like class D amateurs
Hawley-Dolan and Winner had asked the art students to compare paintings by
abstract artists with paintings made by a child or by an animal. In 67% of the
cases, art students said that the painting by a renowned artist is better. I
compare this with the winning probability of the chessplayers of different
ratings. I conclude that the great artists score on the level of class D
amateurs
Statistics against irritations: a response to Dickens's apologists
In a recent article (arXiv:0909.2479) I reported the results of the test,
where the takers had to tell the prose of Charles Dickens from the prose of
Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The former is a required reading in school, and the
latter has a bad writing contest named after him. Nevertheless, the test-takers
performed on the level of random guessing. This research has met much
criticism, which I refute the in the present article
Mathematical proof of fraud in Russian elections unsound
The Washigton Post had published allegations, that results of Russian
elections "violate Gauss's groundbreaking work on statistics." I show that
these allegations lack scientific basis
Stochastic modeling of citation slips
We present empirical data on frequency and pattern of misprints in citations
to twelve high-profile papers. We find that the distribution of misprints,
ranked by frequency of their repetition, follows Zipf's law. We propose a
stochastic model of citation process, which explains these findings, and leads
to the conclusion that 70-90% of scientific citations are copied from the lists
of references used in other papers.Comment: Some corrections and additions. To appear in Scientometric
A mathematical theory of fame
We study empirically how the fame of WWI fighter-pilot aces, measured in
numbers of web pages mentioning them, is related to their achievement, measured
in numbers of opponent aircraft destroyed. We find that on the average fame
grows exponentially with achievement; the correlation coefficient between
achievement and the logarithm of fame is 0.72. The number of people with a
particular level of achievement decreases exponentially with the level, leading
to a power-law distribution of fame. We propose a stochastic model that can
explain the exponential growth of fame with achievement. Next, we hypothesize
that the same functional relation between achievement and fame that we found
for the aces holds for other professions. This allows us to estimate
achievement for professions where an unquestionable and universally accepted
measure of achievement does not exist. We apply the method to Nobel Prize
winners in Physics. For example, we obtain that Paul Dirac, who is a hundred
times less famous than Einstein contributed to physics only two times less. We
compare our results with Landau's ranking.Comment: Journal of Statistical Physics, Published on line 12 January 2013.
arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:0906.3558,
arXiv:cond-mat/031004
Statistical study of time intervals between murders for serial killers
We study the distribution of 2,837 inter-murder intervals (cooling off
periods) for 1,012 American serial killers. The distribution is smooth,
following a power law in the region of 10-10,000 days. The power law cuts off
where inter-murder intervals become comparable with the length of human life.
Otherwise there is no other characteristic scale in the distribution. In
particular, we do not see any characteristic spree-killer interval or
serial-killer interval, but only a monotonous smooth distribution lacking any
features. This suggests that there is only a quantitative difference between
serial killers and spree-killers, representing different samples generated by
the same underlying phenomenon. The over decade long inter-murder intervals are
not anomalies, but rare events described by the same power-law distribution and
therefore should not necessarily be looked upon with suspicion, as has been
done in a recent case involving a serial killer dubbed as the "Grim Sleeper."
This large-scale study supports the conclusions of a previous study, involving
three prolific serial killers, and the associated neural net model, which can
explain the observed power law distribution
Theory of aces: high score by skill or luck?
We studied the distribution of World War I fighter pilots by the number of
victories they were credited with, along with casualty reports. Using the
maximum entropy method we obtained the underlying distribution of pilots by
their skill. We find that the variance of this skill distribution is not very
large, and that the top aces achieved their victory scores mostly by luck. For
example, the ace of aces, Manfred von Richthofen, most likely had a skill in
the top quarter of the active WWI German fighter pilots and was no more special
than that. When combined with our recent study (cond-mat/0310049), showing that
fame grows exponentially with victory scores, these results (derived from real
data) show that both outstanding achievement records and resulting fame are
mostly due to chance
Theory of Aces: Fame by chance or merit?
We study empirically how fame of WWI fighter-pilot aces, measured in numbers
of web pages mentioning them, is related to their achievement or merit,
measured in numbers of opponent aircraft destroyed. We find that on the average
fame grows exponentially with achievement; to be precise, there is a strong
correlation (~0.7) between achievement and the logarithm of fame. At the same
time, the number of individuals achieving a particular level of merit decreases
exponentially with the magnitude of the level, leading to a power-law
distribution of fame. A stochastic model that can explain the exponential
growth of fame with merit is also proposed
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