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arXiv · 1201.0905

The workings of the Maximum Entropy Principle in collective human behavior

A. Hernando·R. Hernando·A. Plastino·A. R. Plastino
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Abstract

We exhibit compelling evidence regarding how well does the MaxEnt principle describe the rank-distribution of city-populations via an exhaustive study of the 50 Spanish provinces (more than 8000 cities) in a time-window of 15 years (1996-2010). We show that the dynamics that governs the population-growth is the deciding factor that originates the observed distributions. The connection between dynamics and distributions is unravelled via MaxEnt.

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A. Hernando, R. Hernando, A. Plastino, A. R. Plastino. 2012-01-05. The workings of the Maximum Entropy Principle in collective human behavior. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2012.0758

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