While reading the articles on
network theory, I was reminded of a silly thing that I heard about years and
years ago called the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Basically this process would
count the steps from Bacon to any actor in Hollywood and it usually takes as
little as two steps to reach him. This got huge in the 1990s and actually resulted
in talk show appearances and a book deal. Some scientists from the University
of Virginia even made a web site called The Oracle of Bacon (great way to waste time).
You can use the site to find the connections between Kevin Bacon and all the actors
listed on IMDB. I’m not sure why Kevin Bacon was the center of all this because
it’s not like he is the only actor for which this would work – in a sense, the entire
organization of Hollywood in a network.
Mathematicians call this type of close link a small-world network. The World Wide Web is organized in the same way, as well as the numerous examples given in the reading on network theories. They are all similar because they follow the same rules. In each network, most nodes are linked to only a few other nodes but these nodes have lots of links.
Researchers have developed a sophisticated theory of networks that helps make sense of what looked at first like messy tangled webs. For example, the introduction of what we now see on our public transit maps. Network theory is allowing scientists to understand how networks produce unexpected kinds of behavior you wouldn’t be able to predict from looking at individual parts and this information can be helpful to our future.
Mathematicians call this type of close link a small-world network. The World Wide Web is organized in the same way, as well as the numerous examples given in the reading on network theories. They are all similar because they follow the same rules. In each network, most nodes are linked to only a few other nodes but these nodes have lots of links.
Researchers have developed a sophisticated theory of networks that helps make sense of what looked at first like messy tangled webs. For example, the introduction of what we now see on our public transit maps. Network theory is allowing scientists to understand how networks produce unexpected kinds of behavior you wouldn’t be able to predict from looking at individual parts and this information can be helpful to our future.
I suspect Kevin Bacon was actually the perfect actor to demonstrate the shrinking of our world/expansion of our connections, precisely because he is such a middle-of-the-road celebrity (apologies to the die-hard fans of Footloose). Such a proof of concept would be too easy with a figure who had starred in hundreds of popular films.
ReplyDeleteAs for network graphs reducing the messiness of the real world, as in the London Underground map in the readings, let's be careful to acknowledge the downsides as well as the upsides (e.g. how people today don't really know how to navigate without explicit directions or GPS systems).