The Superstar Equation, Disproved?
Levitt and Dubner have written before about the origins of star-making talent. But can the road to pop culture megastardom be calculated as a matter of statistical probability? Back in 1994, Kee Chung of SUNY-Buffalo and Raymond Cox of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology applied an equation called the Yule-Simon Distribution to this question. Their findings were that . . .