From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Thu Sep 29 20:40:24 1994 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by nfs1.digex.net with SMTP id AA06340 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 29 Sep 1994 20:40:20 -0400 Message-Id: <199409300040.AA06340@nfs1.digex.net> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7091; Thu, 29 Sep 94 20:41:38 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5719; Thu, 29 Sep 1994 20:41:38 -0400 Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 20:39:49 EDT Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: Jorge Llambias Subject: Re: doi xorxes. do ponse xo tanxe X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO Mark A Biggar: > Another way to state Zipf's Law is that in a lot of "natural" distributions > the nth most frequent item appears with a probability proportional to 1/n. > But I always thought that was obvious because most things are Normally > distributed and if you fold a normal distirbution in half around then mean > line you get something that looks alot like the 1/n curve. Are you sure? I think they are significantly different. To start with, the 1/n has a much longer tail, which is probably the most interesting part of Zipf's law (I imagine). If there was no difference with the normal distribution it wouldn't be named after Zipf. > Where the > lingusitic version of Zipf's law comes from is that Zipf originally > developed his distribution law by studing word frequencies in natural > languages and observed that the most frequent words tended to be shorter. And to think that he didn't have computers to count the words. > Zipf (probability putting the cart before the horse) theorized that first > observation was a natural law that was responsible for the second. Did he really make some sort of connection between the word length and the distribution, or just observed that most short words were very frequent? > Personaly, I always though laziness explained it better. Yes, I'd say a combination of laziness and impatience. > Both of Zifp's observations have become know collectivly as Zipf's Law. Jorge