Mathematicians: Music spreads just like a virus

The pattern of music downloads after their release appears to closely resemble epidemic curves for infectious disease - mathematicians from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada have found. The team followed the pattern of 1,000 songs downloaded in the UK between 2007 and 2014, measuring how well a standard model of epidemic disease, called the SIR model, fitted trends in song downloads over time. The research found the model performed just as well when describing song download trends as it did when describing the spread of a disease through the population. In their research, electronic music turned out to be the most infectious genre of all. Guardian reports about the interesting study.