Equation 7 · Part 1 · The Bandwidth of Culture: Transmission Fidelity to 2100
Symbol L_t
What this part means
loss from forgetting, obsolescence, or population decline.
Its job in the formula
is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol L_t→Article meaning
Where the article explains it
Here is the stock of cultural complexity in circulation at time t ; [0,1] is the transmission-fidelity coefficient — the share of that survives one round of copying, the same quantity Henrich’s Tasmania case shows collapsing when the effective transmitting population shrinks; is genuinely new human innovation entering the pool; and is loss from forgetting, obsolescence, or population decline.
The passage around this formula
…share of that survives one round of copying, the same quantity Henrich’s Tasmania case shows collapsing when the effective transmitting population shrinks; is genuinely new human innovation entering the pool; and is loss from forgetting, obsolescence, or population decline. This is the formal skeleton underneath everything in the two sections above: print and the internet acted mainly by raising and the volume can reach an audience with; the telegraph and broadcast acted mainly by collapsing…
Learn the underlying idea
A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.
Open the illustrated subscripts: which member of a family? guide →
See this notation across published equations →
The article lists its research sources here.