Ever wonder why it is so hard to climb to the top of the heap?
Suppose the five most cited philosophers account for 1% of all the philosophy citations. Suppose it takes the next 15, or three times as many, to provide the same 1%. In a Bradford distribution, the same multiplier keeps repeating: the next 45 will provide the next 1%, 135 the next, and so on.
Citations are said to follow a Bradford distribution.
Zipf distributions are similarly reverse exponential. In Zipf rankings, the number by which items are ranked will be inversely proportionate to rank. Famously, when you rank words in a language by frequency of use, you get a Zipf distribution: the fifth ranked word is used only one-fifth as often as the most used word; the twentieth only one-twentieth as often, and so on.
Other reputed Zipf distributions: individuals ranked by wealth, books by sales, blogs by visits, cities by population.
Renown and wealth fall off fast. No wonder you're going nowhere.
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