Power laws and predicting the development of the web
In statistics, a power law is a functional relationship between two quantities, where a relative change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity, independent of the initial size of those quantities: one quantity varies as a power of another. [2].
Related to web science (and this article in particular) we imagine for every new web site there is a rise in the total number of new connections. If I have 10 websites, I have a total
| number of websites | total number of possible connections (n*(n-1)/2) |
|---|---|
| 10 | 45 |
| 11 | 50 |
| 12 | 66 |
The law has often been illustrated using the example of fax machines: a single fax machine is useless, but the value of every fax machine increases with the total number of fax machines in the network, because the total number of people with whom each user may send and receive documents increases.[5] Likewise, in social networks, the greater number of users with the service, the more valuable the service becomes to the community.
Do you understand this?[edit]
Standards[edit]
These standards are used from the IB Computer Science Subject Guide[3]
- Discuss whether power laws are appropriate to predict the development of the web.
References[edit]
- ↑ http://www.flaticon.com/
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law
- ↑ IB Diploma Programme Computer science guide (first examinations 2014). Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom: International Baccalaureate Organization. January 2012.