"From a very small percentage of the population ... we get out these general laws of migration that were defined in the late 19th century," Schich says.
One law was unexpected: People don't like to move too far from home, even in the 21st century. Despite the invention of trains, planes and cars, artists nowadays don't venture much farther from their birthplaces then they did in the 14th century. The average distance between birthplace and where a person dies hasn't even doubled in 400 years, the team found. (It's gone from 133 miles to 237 miles.)
Schich and his team also showed that deviations from these overall trends could be linked to historical events. For example, a lot of politicians and architects died in France between 1785 and 1805, right around the time of the French Revolution. But the violence had a much smaller effect on people in the fine arts.
The models are the latest application of a rapidly growing field, called network science — which uses visualizations to find the underlying patterns and trends in complex data sets.
Krulwich Wonders...
A 'Whom Do You Hang With?' Map Of America