Expert: David Hemmer - 12/30/2011

Question
If the number of people(N) with wealth (W) is related to the inverse of W raised to a power between two and three then explain to me why if the number of people with ten times the wealth is about one sixth the number with only W. I recently read this in a book called the "Social Atom" by Mark Buchanan.

Answer
Your first sentence gives an equation like:

N= 1/(W^x) where x is between two and three.  If that is the case and you replace W by 10W then N gets multiplied by 1/(10^x), so it should be more like one hundredth or one thousandth the number with only W.

If you quote me the exact passage from the book I might be able to help more.