Series on Inequality – 1 – Price’s Law

“It’s winner-take-all in the lobster world, just as it is in human societies….” Page 8 – 12 Rules for Life Derek J. de Solla Price in 1963 noticed something rather interesting, namely that half of the published papers within a given area came from the square root of all the authors of those papers. For example; If there is a scientific area that has 100 papers published, written by 25 different authors. 50 of these papers will have come from just 5 authors. This is “Price’s Law” and it doesn’t seem to just describe the authorship of scientific journals. It […]