• Open Access

Quantifying the unexpected: A scientific approach to Black Swans

Giordano De Marzo, Andrea Gabrielli, Andrea Zaccaria, and Luciano Pietronero
Phys. Rev. Research 4, 033079 – Published 27 July 2022

Abstract

Many natural and socioeconomic systems are characterized by power-law distributions that make the occurrence of extreme events not negligible. Such events are sometimes referred to as Black Swans, but a quantitative definition of a Black Swan is still lacking. Here, by leveraging on the properties of Zipf-Mandelbrot law, we investigate the relations between such extreme events and the dynamics of the upper cutoff of the inherent distribution. This approach permits a quantification of extreme events and allows to classify them as White, Gray, or Black Swans. Our criterion is in accordance with some previous findings but also allows us to spot new examples of Black Swans, such as Lionel Messi and the Turkish Airlines Flight 981 disaster. The systematic and quantitative methodology we developed allows a scientific and immediate categorization of rare events, also providing insight into the generative mechanism behind Black Swans.

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  • Received 28 January 2022
  • Accepted 21 April 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.033079

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Interdisciplinary Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Giordano De Marzo1,4,5, Andrea Gabrielli1,2,3, Andrea Zaccaria2,1,*, and Luciano Pietronero1,2,4

  • 1Centro Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Piazza del Viminale, 1, I-00184 Rome, Italy
  • 2Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi (ISC) - CNR, UoS Sapienza, P. le A. Moro, 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy
  • 3Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Via Vito Volterra 62, I-00146 Rome, Italy
  • 4Dipartimento di Fisica Università “Sapienza,” P. le A. Moro, 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy
  • 5Sapienza School for Advanced Studies, “Sapienza,” P. le A. Moro, 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy

  • *Corresponding author: andrea.zaccaria@cnr.it

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Issue

Vol. 4, Iss. 3 — July - September 2022

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