Digitizing books allow a new way to study history and culture

[Тютчев]

Digitizing books allow a new way to study history and culture

17/12/201010: 40

MOSCOW, December 17 - RIA Novosti. Scientists have proposed a new field of knowledge called kulturomikoy and based on statistical analysis of digitized books, which is linked to "quantitative" study of the history of language and literature, as well as manifestations of a cultural phenomenon in history. Researchers report that in an article published in the journal Science.

The joint work of scientists at Harvard University and Professional Division of Google, dealing with the digitization and distribution of books in the network, based on the huge digital materials accumulated Internet company. Google today digitized about 15 million books, representing 12%of all ever unreleased volumes.

This array contains 500 billion of words that can not be read by any one person.

However, computer statistical analysis allows for a quick search of words and symbols on the entire database, allowing you to quickly track the manifestation of a cultural phenomenon in the course of history, as reflected in the books.

For example, the analysis has enabled researchers to find out that the peak of the popularity of the actors have for 30 years - this is the age they are most frequently mentioned in the press. Writers go back to stardom 10 years later, the names of scientists is often mentioned only in exceptional cases and mainly have to reach their old age. In this case, physicists and biologists to play a lot more attention than the mathematicians.

More large-scale analysis has enabled researchers to assess the history of English language development in the twentieth century. According to the findings of the research team, led by Jean-Baptiste Michel (Jean-Baptiste Michel) from Harvard University, today the English language contains about one million words. Over the past 50 years, his vocabulary has grown by almost 70%, and the growth rate was about 8,500 words a year. However, at present in a conversation or letter is used only half of the lexicon.

As shown by the scientists, their imprint on the language and impose external factors, in particular political regimes.

For example, references to the artist Marc Chagall, a Jew by nationality, in the printed 1936-1944 Nazi Germany's did not occur almost never, whereas in the English-language sources come across quite often. A similar situation exists with regard to Leon Trotsky in a certain period in the history of the Soviet Union or in Tiananmen Square, where in 1989 have been massive unrest in the Chinese sources.

With this statistical approach, as shown by the scientists, it is possible to trace the influence of external factors on the manifestation of a culture of concepts such as feminism, god, evolution, healthy lifestyle, and others, in varying degrees of interest to every member of society.

"Kulturomika expands the potential to date quantitative analysis of many phenomena of social and humanities. The study of the cultural imprint concrete concept in the history of wonder to many people however, we hope that our approach will be particularly actively used by scientists studying Humanities and Social Sciences "- said Erez Lieberman Aiden (Erez Lieberman Aiden), co-author, quoted by the press office at Harvard University.

http://rian.ru/science/20101217/309883432.html