Correlation Properties of the Large Scale Matter Distribution and Galaxy Number Counts

We introduce the basic techniques used for the analysis of three dimensional and two dimensional galaxy samples. We report the correlation analysis of various redshift surveys which shows that the available data are consistent with each other and manifest fractal correlations (with dimension $D backslash simeq 2$) up to the present observational limits without any tendency towards homogenization. This result points to a new interpretation of the galaxy number counts. We show that an analysis of the small scale fluctuations allows us to reconcile the correlation analysis and the number counts in a new perspective which has a number of important implications.