Lindy effect
Theorized increase of longevity with age / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Lindy Effect?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The Lindy effect (also known as Lindy's Law[1]) is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age. Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. Longevity implies a resistance to change, obsolescence, or competition, and greater odds of continued existence into the future.[2] Where the Lindy effect applies, mortality rate decreases with time. Mathematically, the Lindy effect corresponds to lifetimes following a Pareto probability distribution.
The concept is named after Lindy's delicatessen in New York City, where the concept was informally theorized by comedians.[3][4] The Lindy effect has subsequently been theorized by mathematicians and statisticians.[5][6][1] Nassim Nicholas Taleb has expressed the Lindy effect in terms of "distance from an absorbing barrier".[7]
The Lindy effect applies to "non-perishable" items, those that do not have an "unavoidable expiration date".[2] For example, human beings are perishable: the life expectancy at birth in developed countries is about 80 years. So the Lindy effect does not apply to individual human lifespan: all else being equal, it is less likely for a 10-year-old human to die within the next year than for a 100-year-old, while the Lindy effect would predict the opposite.