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Speculations in Science and Technology, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1983) -p.103-112   (47L) 103

THE GENESIS MODEL - PART II: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS OF ELEMENTS IN SELFORGANIZED SYSTEMS

PETER WINIWARTER

Le Bordalier Institute, F-41270 Drone, France.

Received: 7 September 1982

Abstract

A quantitative measurement of the complexity C of a selforganized system implies the determination of the frequencies of the element types constituting the system. The analysis of empirical data concerning a large variety of selforganized systems - such as cosmic systems, biological systems, economic systems and linguistic systems - suggests a general law. The second law of genesis: The rank-ordered frequency distribution of element-types of any selforganized system at any level of hierarchical organization can be approximated by a mathematical distribution of the form p n = A (n + m)**B