The workings of the maximum entropy principle in collective human behaviour

We present an exhaustive study of the rank-distribution of city-population and population-dynamics of the 50 Spanish provinces (more than 8000 municipalities) in a time-window of 15 years (1996-2010). We exhibit compelling evidence regarding how well the MaxEnt principle describes the equilibrium di...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Hernando de Castro, Alberto, Hernando, R., Plastino, Ángel Luis, Plastino, Ángel Ricardo
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2013
Country:Argentina
Institution:Universidad Nacional de La Plata
Repository:SEDICI (UNLP)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/85383
Online Access:http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/85383
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Física
Population growth
MaxEnt principle
Microscopic dynamics
Description
Summary:We present an exhaustive study of the rank-distribution of city-population and population-dynamics of the 50 Spanish provinces (more than 8000 municipalities) in a time-window of 15 years (1996-2010). We exhibit compelling evidence regarding how well the MaxEnt principle describes the equilibrium distributions. We show that the microscopic dynamics that governs population growth is the deciding factor that originates the observed macroscopic distributions. The connection between microscopic dynamics and macroscopic distributions is unravelled via MaxEnt.