Physicist Derived Popularity Formula – Mail News

Sociologists have long noted that the popularity of citizens often has little to do with their actual achievements.

For example, several years ago, the physicist César Hidalgo and his team suggested to evaluate the most famous people of all time on the basis of a single criterion – the number of languages ​​on which the people appear on Wikipedia. In the end, the most famous musician was Jimi Hendrix, the most famous American – Martin Luther. King Jr. and the whole list was led by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Regarding social success, some "mysterious" laws come into effect, which have so far been described in a very vague way.

Famous physicist Albert Laslo Barabashi in the new book "The formula: The universal laws of success" (The formula: The universal laws of success) has tried to derive its popularity algorithm.

Barabashi became known because in 1999 he had mathematically described a new type of network, called "scale-free networks," and suggested that the development of such networks underpin the processes of self-organization of non-linear complex systems . His feat was named one of the major discoveries of the early twenty-first century.

Barabashi shares the badertion that the success of a person or a product does not always match his or her real achievements. For example, the German pilot Manfred von Richthofen was named best ace of the First World War, although many of his records were beaten by his contemporary driver, the French driver René Paul Fonck, half forgotten.

Barabashi, after examining many examples from music, science, commerce, sports and even winemaking, has developed a number of simple "laws of success".

D & # 39; First, According to a scientist, achievements lead to success, but if achievements can not be measured accurately, networks will lead to success. For example, if we are talking about sports, it is easy to determine the best athlete based on the outcome of the competition. But if we talk about wine, objectively choosing the best one out of hundreds of fairly similar premium brands is quite difficult, even for professional tasters. When quality is hard to measure, network effects take effect – people buy mostly what they have heard before or what their friends have advised them to do.

Secondly says Barabashi, the achievements are limited, the result is unlimited. It gives again an example of wine: a hundred of the best wines may vary slightly in quality, but some one or more will have much better sales than everyone because of the effect of network building.

The third law of Barabashi says: achievements plus previous successes are equal to future successes.

And finally, the fourth law: although the result depends on the coordinated work of the whole team, the merits will always be attributed to a person. The badysis of the results of the teams shows that people who are recognized by the public for some realization, often almost unrelated to all the work done.

We can think that success should be determined by the skill and diligence of the person. But more important is the way others react when they are connected by complex social networks, sums up the researcher.

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