Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site randvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!randvax!bamford From: bamford@randvax.ARPA (Cliff Bamford) Newsgroups: net.math Subject: Request for info on Zipf's law Message-ID: <1749@randvax.ARPA> Date: Sat, 10-Mar-84 13:26:29 EST Article-I.D.: randvax.1749 Posted: Sat Mar 10 13:26:29 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 13-Mar-84 00:58:28 EST Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica Lines: 15 This line is for the line gobbler. Can anyone out there in netland point me to information on Zipf's law? As I understand it, Zipf sez that for a wide range of naturally-occuring distributions (like the letters in english text), the product (cardinal rank on distribution (eg "e" = 1)) * (number of occurances) is approximately a constant. I'm interested in applications to fast lookup of names of human beans. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Cliff Bamford ARPA: bamford@rand-unix UUCP: {decvax, sdcrdcf, vortex}!randvax!bamford