  World record setting has long attracted public interest and scientific
investigation. Extremal records summarize the limits of the space explored by a
process, and the historical progression of a record sheds light on the
underlying dynamics of the process. Existing analyses of prediction,
statistical properties, and ultimate limits of record progressions have focused
on particular domains. However, a broad perspective on how record progressions
vary across different spheres of activity needs further development. Here we
employ cross-cutting metrics to compare records across a variety of domains,
including sports, games, biological evolution, and technological development.
We find that these domains exhibit characteristic statistical signatures in
terms of rates of improvement, "burstiness" of record-breaking time series, and
the acceleration of the record breaking process. Specifically, sports and games
exhibit the slowest rate of improvement and a wide range of rates of
"burstiness." Technology improves at a much faster rate and, unlike other
domains, tends to show acceleration in records. Many biological and
technological processes are characterized by constant rates of improvement,
showing less burstiness than sports and games. It is important to understand
how these statistical properties of record progression emerge from the
underlying dynamics. Towards this end, we conduct a detailed analysis of a
particular record-setting event: elite marathon running. In this domain, we
find that studying record-setting data alone can obscure many of the structural
properties of the underlying process. The marathon study also illustrates how
some of the standard statistical assumptions underlying record progression
models may be inappropriate or commonly violated in real-world datasets.
