{
  "annotation_id": "4fb70323-341b-48be-a5cb-0b8b2e3fa272",
  "date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:10.914000Z",
  "date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:10.914000Z",
  "file_hash": "5d7de84ce047dd4cb4981da2d42b4b5a4508ad7b50d0934c84d0d605fc53d0fb",
  "private": false,
  "record": {
    "abstract": "We studied the distribution of World War I fighter pilots by the number of\nvictories they were credited with, along with casualty reports. Using the\nmaximum entropy method we obtained the underlying distribution of pilots by\ntheir skill. We find that the variance of this skill distribution is not very\nlarge, and that the top aces achieved their victory scores mostly by luck. For\nexample, the ace of aces, Manfred von Richthofen, most likely had a skill in\nthe top quarter of the active WWI German fighter pilots and was no more special\nthan that. When combined with our recent study (cond-mat/0310049), showing that\nfame grows exponentially with victory scores, these results (derived from real\ndata) show that both outstanding achievement records and resulting fame are\nmostly due to chance.",
    "arxiv_id": "physics/0607109",
    "authors": [
      "M. V. Simkin",
      "V. P. Roychowdhury"
    ],
    "categories": [
      "physics.soc-ph",
      "cond-mat.dis-nn",
      "physics.data-an"
    ],
    "journal_ref": "Journal of Mathematical Sociology, v32, pp 129-141, 2008",
    "title": "Theory of aces: high score by skill or luck?",
    "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0607109"
  },
  "schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
  "source": {
    "execution_id": "80450ac8-a495-476a-8d4c-369a38958fce",
    "id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
    "type": "Model",
    "variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
    "version": "0.1.0"
  },
  "user_id": 1000002
}