Culturomics meets random fractal theory: Insights into long-range correlations of social and natural phenomena over the past two centuries

Details Culturomics meets random fractal theory: Insights into long-range correlations of social and natural phenomena over the past two centuries Culturomics meets random fractal theory: Insights into long-range correlations of social and natural phenomena over the past two centuries

2012-02-23

arxiv.org/abs/1202.5299v1

J. R. Soc. Interface (2012); FirstCite

Physics

Physics and Society

8 two-column pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Journal of the Royal Society Interface [data available at http://

Scientific paper

10.1098/rsif.2011.0846

Culturomics was recently introduced as the application of high-throughput data collection and analysis to the study of human culture. Here we make use of this data by investigating fluctuations in yearly usage frequencies of specific words that describe social and natural phenomena, as derived from books that were published over the course of the past two centuries. We show that the determination of the Hurst parameter by means of fractal analysis provides fundamental insights into the nature of long-range correlations contained in the culturomic trajectories, and by doing so, offers new interpretations as to what might be the main driving forces behind the examined phenomena. Quite remarkably, we find that social and natural phenomena are governed by fundamentally different processes. While natural phenomena have properties that are typical for processes with persistent long-range correlations, social phenomena are better described as nonstationary, on-off intermittent, or Levy walk processes.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Culturomics meets random fractal theory: Insights into long-range correlations of social and natural phenomena over the past two centuries does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Culturomics meets random fractal theory: Insights into long-range correlations of social and natural phenomena over the past two centuries, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Culturomics meets random fractal theory: Insights into long-range correlations of social and natural phenomena over the past two centuries will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-77558