chapter fifteen
15 The Lindy effect
This chapter covers
- Examining the 80-20 rule
- Visualizing the 80-20 rule with Pareto charts
- Creating violin plots
- Creating paired histograms
The Lindy effect, or Lindy’s law, suggests that non-perishable items, such as a book in print or a business, have life expectancies equal to their current age. For instance, if The Great Gatsby has been in print for 100 years we can expect it to remain in print for another 100 years. Basically, the longer something has been in existence, the longer it is likely to continue existing. The concept is named after a former delicatessen in New York City named Lindy’s that nonetheless remained open for nearly a century. The Lindy effect does not apply to human beings, fruit, or other perishable items; after all, we can’t expect a man aged 75 years to live another 75 years, or a banana to stay ripe indefinitely.