station in northwest Australia. The station, at Northwest Cape, will- related to the uniqueness of H a a r m e a s u r e o n l o c a l l y c o m p a c t g r o u p s .

provide radio communications for United States and allied ships over
a w i d e a r e a of the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. The station wid The fundamental innovation of t h i s p a p e r is the fact that Zipf's
c o s t a n e s t i m a t e d $70 million including the operating and administra- Law may be used to obtainglobal i n f o r m a t i o n f r o m l i m i t e d l o c a l d a t a ,
tive portions of the installation. The Cutler, Me., V L F s t a t i o n , re- Thus, if the population of t h e l a r g e s t c i t y i n a country i s known t o b e
cently completed, cost an estimated $63 million. Engineering studies PI, thetotalpopulationshouldapproximate? PI -f PI. F o r -
a r e i n p r o g r e s s a n d , s u b j e c t t o C o n g r e s s i o n a l a p p r o v a l , it is expect- merly, people have shied away from this formula, because it appears
ed that construction should begin in January 1963, with the facility to contain the divergent harmonic series. However, there is an ob-
being completed i n e a r l y 1966. The Navy's Bureau of Yards and vious way to truncate the summation. Since no city has a population
Docks i s coordinating the efforts of an engineering joint venture com- of l e s s h a n 1 , i t is n a t u r a l t o s t o p t h e s u m m a t i o n f o r i ; P l , a t w h i c h
posed of Deco Electronics, Leesburg, Va. Continental Electronics
f
point 7 P1 <1. It is i m p o r t a n t t o e m p h a s i z e t h a t t h e s u m i s q u i t e
Manufacturing Co., Dallas; and Holmes and Narver, architects- i n s e n s i t i v e t o t h e p r e c i s e p o i n t of truncation. If one were to take
e n g i n e e r s , L o s A n g e l e s , f o r t h e p r e p a r a t i o n of the plans and specifi- twice as many terms, thereby allowing all cities with populations
cations. L 1 / 2 , t h e i n c r e a s e i n t h e s u m would be only P 1 log, 2 , o r about five
million added to the population estimate of the United States based on
the population of New York City.
A portable fan beam radar antenna, the OA-l227/TPS, has been
produced for the Signal Corps by Hazeltine Corp., Little Neck. The The total population is s e e n t o b e r e l a t e d t o t h a tof t h e l a r g e s t c i t y
r e f l e c t o r is 40 X 11 ft! by the formula PTOTAL.PI PI P1 log, P 1 , w h e r e if only thenth
l a r g e s t c i t y ' s population::Pn, I S known, one uses the substitution nPn
s P1. F o r e x a m p l e , i f P1= lo', then PTQTAL 107.7.2.3
A 267 page bibliography on plasma physics has been produced by 161, 000, 000, which is a good ballpark estimate of the United States
MF Aukland of ASTIA. U s e r s w i t h m i l i t a r y c o n t r a c t s c a n r e q u e s t population. Recently I had occasion to visit Czechoslovakia, and one of
AD271170. the few intelligent facts I was able to learn was that Prague, the larg-
e s t c i t y , h a s a PO ulation of an even one million. From this I computed
that PT,OTAL~ B
10 - 6 . 2 . 3 ~ 1 3 , 8 0 0000.
, Then I was informed that the
The Chicago Section IRE h a s h a d a n o t h e r l e c t u r e series, entitled, population of t h e e n t i r e c o u n t r y w a s usually quoted as "around 14 .MM".
"Communications Uhlimited". The PGAP Chapter was instrumental
i n o r g a n i z i n g t h e s e r i e s , w h i c h s t a r t e d A p r i l 4. T h e l e c t u r e n o t e s The relation PTOTAL: P1 log, P1 will be designated as "Zipf's
have been made available for $5.00 in an 8 X 11 multilith format. Global Law", and I propose that it be enacted into the existing body of
Contents are: international law as soon as possible. Thus, at future peace confer-
ences, the amount of h i n t e r l a n d t o b e a s s o c i a t e d w i t h t h e c a p i t a l c i t y
Antennas Propagation Dr. E. C. J o r d a n 25 p. of any newly formed country should be c o n s t r a i n e d t o follow Zipf's
VHF UHF Antennas M. W. Scheldorf 83 p. 91
figs law. I have not checked the figures, but the troubles in the Congo may
Microwave RadarAntennas Dr. R. F. H. Yang 11 p. be due to the inadequacy of Leopoldville to justify s o l a r g e a v a l u e of
V L FP r o p a g a t i o n Antennas Morton F. S p e a r s 32 p. PTOTAL. A l s o , m o r e a c c u r a t e r e p o r t i n g of P1 is likely if derived
Airborne SpaceVehicleAntennas D. L. Herling29 p. f r o m PTOTAL. Thus, given that the United States population is
Global Long Range Satl?llite Comm. John Granlund 18 p. 185, 000, 000, the largest city should have a population of about
Telescopes
Radio R. A. Giddis 29 p. 11,500,000, which would justify the annexation of s e v e r a l s u b u r b s by
Propagation Factors in Extra-Global Comm. New York City, and hence by Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia
D. W. Swayze P. as well. On the other hand, the population of England only admits a
l a r g e s t c i t y of some 4 to 5 million inhabitants, which suggests that too
Copies may be obtained from Scanfax, Inc., 1200 Madison Park, many suburbs have been included in some of the higher population e c
Chicago 14, Illinois. t i m a t e s f o r London.

Countries as w e l l a s c i t i e s follow Zipf's Law. From the fact that

The Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory and Antennas, which China has a population of 650 m i l l i o n , a n d t h a t t h e r e a r e s o m e 110
was held in Copenhagen 24-30 June 1962 under the sponsorship of countries in the world (the exact number is n o t c r i t i c a l ) , t h e t o t a l
U S 1 C o m m i s s i o n VI, the Danish National Committee of URSI, and world population should be givenby
the Technical University of Denmark, was a delightful success. About 8 pWORLDzpCHINA 110 f 6. 5 10 x 4.7 3. billion.
400 s c i e n t i s t s a n d e n g i n e e r s w e r e i n a t t e n d a n c e w i t h 1 3 3 p a p e r s p r e -
sented. Sessions were held on High Frequency Scattering, Radar Conversely, the population of China can be estimated from the popula-
Reflections from Planets, Waves and Sources in Anisotropic Media, tion of the world.
Pattern Synthesis, Leaky Waves, Ferrite Random Media, Partial Co-
herence, Radiating Elements, Mode Propagation, and'stratified Media. Zipf's Global Law is not restricted to population estimation. For
Those presented papers which have been submitted for publicationin example, i f it is known that the Zilch Corporation pays its president
t h e S y m p o s i u m P r o c e e d i n g s are now being reviewed; the Proceedings $lOO,OOO/year, then the total annual payroll should be S l o g e s , w h e r e
will be published by P e r g a m o n Press. S is the president's salary. However, it is i m p o r t a n t t o m e a s u r e S in
units of "minimum annual wage" (say $2000), so that maw, and
log, St3.91. Thus Total Payrollz50 x 3.915195.5 maw=$391, 100.00
TECHNICAL SECTION p e r y e a r . A s o m e w h a t m o r e e x a c t e s t i m a t e c o u l d b e o b t a i n e d if t h e
number of employees is a l s o known, s i n c e t h a t would tell exactly how
Zipf's Law as a Tool in Strategic, Military, and Economic Intelligence m a n y t e r m s of t h e h a r m o n i c s e r i e s t o keep. It is an obvious,next step
By Solomon W. Golomb to apply Zipf's Global Law t o t h e m o s t g e n e r a l p r o b l e m s of economic
estimation and forecasting, including (say) the total output of t r a c t o r s
Zipf's Law states, in effect, that if the population of New York o r t a n k s i n a given country knowing the output of t h e i r l a r g e s t t r a c t o r
City is 8, 000, 000, then the population of Chicago is 4,000, 000, the or tank plant. The true value of this Law in strategic, military and
population of Los Angeles is 2, 666,666, the population of Philadelphia economic intelligence is inestimable.
is 2 , 000, 000, and the population of Detroit i s 1, 600, 000. This is a
r a t h e r good approximation. More generally, in any collection of sta- References:
tistics to which Zipf's Law applies, if the numbers are listed in des-
cending order, and are given "ranks" of 1, 2,3,4,5, 1) Zipf, George K. Human Behaviour and the Principle of L e a s t
s t a r t i n g f r o m t h e l a r g e s t , t h e n t h e p r o d u c t of d a t a n u m b e r t i m e s c o r - Effort Addison.WesleyPub.,Inc.,1949,Redding.Mass.
responding rank number should be approximatelyconstant.Equiva-
lently,the nth l a r g e s t i t e m s h o u l d be(h)th the size of t h e l a r g e s t i t e m , 2) Loomis, L. An Introduction to Abstract Harmonic Analysis,
as with the cities of t h e United States. The question of just how widely D. van Nostrand Co.,Inc., New York, 1953.
Zipf's Law truly applies w i l l be evaded here, except to note that it i s
f a r w i d e r t h a n o n ewould naively suppose, and that its v a l i d i t y c a n b e The preceding tidbit was pinched from the PGIT Newsletter.

Authorized licensd use limted to: IE Xplore. Downlade on May 10,2 at 19:035 UTC from IE Xplore. Restricon aply.