Innovation Network

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Comment by Lee Carleton on September 21, 2008 at 9:54pm

...and if the concept of a spider info repository is not sufficiently innovative, nested within the spider image's articulated links could be an introduction to one of the most important and broadly applicable and powerful intellectual breakthroughs of our digital age: "the new science of networks."

In his 2003 bookLinked Albert-Laszlo Barabasi of Notre Dame traces the origins and development of network theory while surveying its many fascinating manifestations in mathematics, business, biology, physics, sociology and the Web. In spite of the ultimate complexity and unfolding nature of network theory, Barabasi's writing is engaging, clear and skillfully weaves together the many disciplines that contribute to and connect with network theory.

In his Introduction, Barabasi writes:

"With the Internet dominating our life, the word network/i> is on everybody's lips these days...the rapidly unfolding science of networks is uncovering phenomena that are far more exciting and revealing than the casual use of the word network.could ever convey. Some of these discoveries are so fresh that many of the key results still circulate as unpublished papers within the scientific community. They open up a novel perspective on the interconnected world around us, indicating that networks will dominate the new century to a much greater degree than most people are ready to acknowledge." (7)

Perhaps most fascinating is the principle of self-organization and the dance of order & chaos that is evident from the molecular level all the way up to the universal. The exploration of the laws governing complex networks led Barabasi to learn that "when giving birth to order, complex systems divest themselves of their unique features and display a universal behavior that has similar characteristics in a wide range of systems." (78)

other insights:
complex interconnectivity
self-organizing behavior
social network analysis
topological robustness (avoids cascading failure)
cp. Bose-Einstein condensate as theoretical tool

What might only start as a simple spider website could become an important location for information about exciting discoveries in all disciplines empowered by the emerging science of networks.