Scale-invariance underlying the logistic equation and its social applications

On the basis of dynamical principles we derive the Logistic Equation (LE), widely employed (among multiple applications) in the simulation of population growth, and demonstrate that scale-invariance and a mean-value constraint are sufficient and necessary conditions for obtaining it. We also generalize the LE to multi-component systems and show that the above dynamical mechanisms underlie large number of scale-free processes. Examples are presented regarding city-populations, diffusion in complex networks, and popularity of technological products, all of them obeying the multi-component logistic equation in an either stochastic or deterministic way. So as to assess the predictability-power of our present formalism, we advance a prediction, regarding the next 60 months, for the number of users of the three main web browsers (Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) popularly referred as “Browser Wars”.