Bilinear effect in complex systems

Abstract

The distribution of the lifetime of Chinese dynasties (as well as that of the British Isles and Japan) in a linear Zipf plot is found to consist of two straight lines intersecting at a transition point. This two-section piecewise-linear distribution is different from the power law or the stretched exponent distribution, and is called the Bilinear Effect for short. With assumptions mimicking the organization of ancient Chinese regimes, a 3-layer network model is constructed. Numerical results of this model show the bilinear effect, providing a plausible explanation of the historical data. Bilinear effect in two other social systems is presented, indicating that such a piecewise-linear effect is widespread in social systems.

Making Movies and Making Physics

“…Essentially, my physics research ranged from nuclear physics in my Vancouver years (1965)(1966) to condensed matter theory at New York and Europe (1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978), and then from liquid crystals research in China andNew York (1978-1987) to nonlinear physics and complex systems in San Jose (since 1987). I started publishing on the humanities in 2002 [Lam, 2002;Lam, et al, 2010].…”