New Scientist reports that the common email-answering pattern of rapid responses to important correspondents and easy questions; long delays for complicated questions is consistent with the correspondence patterns of storied letter-writers of the bygone age, as can be determined by analyzing Einstein and Darwin's correspondence:
Both Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein relied on pen, paper, and the postal service to communicate with correspondents around the world. But researchers have now found the pattern of their replies is the same as that of computer users answering email today, with both following the same mathematical formula.
The pattern could reflect some basic biological encoding that shows up in everything from humans at work to birds foraging for food, according to Albert-László Barabási, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, US.
(via 43 Folders)
