| Abstract: | The question, whether Zipf's law arises only in consequence of interactions in a complex system or if it is also valid for random structures, has been controversially discussed in the literature over several decades. We show by means of simulations that the frequency distributions of simple random sequences usually obey this regularity. For tens of thousands of cases the goodness-of-fit is explicitly demonstrated by estimating the parameter and calculating the corresponding chi-square value. From the study it becomes clear that some existing results in the literature should be revised, and some ideas concerning the explanation of Zipf's law are provided. |
