Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks

by Mark Buchanan

Book Overview

Highlighting groundbreaking research behind network theory, "Mark Buchanan's graceful, lucid, nontechnical and entertaining prose" (Mark Granovetter) documents the mounting support among various disciplines for the small-worlds idea and demonstrates its practical applications to diverse problems--from the volatile global economy or the Human Genome Project to the spread of infectious disease or ecological damage. Nexus is an exciting introduction...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393324427
• ISBN13: 9780393324426
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Intriguing examples

Buchanan really does as promised by the jacket - discusses networks and their similarities in areas such as social, neural, financial, disease, and information. He focuses mainly on the "small-world" principal that we're all familiar with, (i.e. the Kevin Bacon game) and shows how other successful network type application use the same model, from worm neurons to taxes.The book is extremely non-technical, and you don't need any prerequisite learning to enjoy it.

clear thinking, new ideas

This book is a *great* follow-on to Buchanan's earlier book Ubiquity. The book traces research over the past 4 or 5 years into the "architecture" of complex networks. Networks of friendship hold communities together, much as the Internet links computers all over the world and neurons link together the different parts of the human brain. Species link together into ecosystems, web pages to make the WWW, you name it. Most everything can be viewed as a complex network.Amazingly, all these networks turn out to have much the same architecture. The author traces the development of this discovery and shows where it is going, and, more importantly, how this way of thinking might be practically useful, whether for helping the efficiency of a company or stopping global terrorist networks. Some people think "complexity" is going nowhere. But this is "complexity science" at its best and a great read.

Terrific book, Fascinating ideas

In Nexus, Buchanan describes the behavior of complex network systems - things like the internet, the nervous system, and human social networks. But what is so intriguing is how he reveals how entirely different kinds of constituent phenomena can naturally develop into systems and networks that evidence very similar kinds of organization. That is, there seems to be a kind of essential architecture that naturally guides the evolution and growth of such structures. Nexus provides the reader with an understanding of the characteristics of this architecture and how it can explicate what would otherwise be considered bizarre and extraordinary events. By understanding the fundamental architecture of these systems, scientists are looking at how to apply it to real world problems- like how to stabilize ecosystems, or protect the internet from attack. The book is engaging, well-written, and informative. The ideas of Nexus will give readers an appreciation of "the big picture", and tip them off to the comparatively simple and elegant rules that guide vast systems and produce seemingly chaotic events.In short, Nexus succeeds on all counts.