Most of us have had the experience of running into a friend of a friend far away from home - and feeling that the world is somehow smaller than it should be. We usually write off such unlikely encounters as coincidence, even though they seem to happen with uncanny frequency. According to some physicists, it turns out that this 'small-world' phenomenon is no coincidence at all. Rather, it is a manifestation of a hidden and powerful design that binds the world together. The Internet, the brain, power-grids and the global economy are all networks that seem to have evolved a 'small-world' geometry - with properties independent of the nature of the things themselves. SMALL WORLD argues that this underlying pattern may be one of nature's greatest design tricks, and the book shows us how scientists are putting this new insight to work.
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On reading Mark Buchanan's new book, Small World, you can see Kevin Bacon has a lot to answer for. As anyone who has visited The Oracle of Bacon will know, the actor is well connected: only two or three handshakes separate him from every other actor on the Internet Movie Database. Is Mr Bacon special? No. We are all of us--all six billion of us--only about six "degrees of separation" away from each other. Whenever coincidence prompts to say that "it's a small world", we have, says Buchanan, stumbled upon a piece of mathematics as fundamental to the natural world as Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Mean. "Small world networks" are everywhere, underlying diverse cultural, biological and even physical systems.
Buchanan has been quick off the mark with this book: the mature study of small world networks is barely four years old; so, naturally enough, the same pioneering names recur often as he outlines the field's development. But there is nothing contingent or flimsy about Buchanan's arguments as he stakes out the numerous areas for which this new science is already providing surprising insights.
One of the great surprise strengths of this book is Buchanan's grasp of social policy and the behaviours of governments and organisations. In an account that does its level best not to shortchange any application of a new science, it's good to see Buchanan addressing ordinary human applications with such authority and enthusiasm. This approach should reassure those readers who tremble at the idea that this might turn out to be "a book about maths". As far as that goes, the maths is pretty easy territory (spectacular, too)--and Buchanan is an excellent guide. --Simon Ings --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Good reviews coming in for this title: "Some of the conclusions are truly surprising."FOCUS "Enthralling"DAILY MAIL "Buchanan goes for the guts of numbers, the power laws that underlie every network from the Kevin Bacon game connecting Hollywood stars to worms' nervous systems."NEW SCIENTIST
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Mike Watson
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The issue that drew me to this book was the unbelievable statement that it begins with. The claim is made that ANY individual in the world is mysteriously connected to any other through 6 close links i.e you know someone who knows someone else etc. etc. So for example, myself, an occupant of the North-East of England, could in principle contact someone deeply embedded in the Amazon jungle thorugh just 6 people connected by given relationships.
My first reaction was of course (as yours probably is) "What a load of tosh" but I was certainly intent on finding out what this gent Mark Buchanen had to say. I was quickly convinced by his argument that this indeed could be the case. Not wanting to give too much away, the amazing idea quoted at the beginning turns out to be a deeply engrained result of the way almost any network in nature organises itself. The author compares the population network with other complicated systems such as the internet and ecosystems resulting in stunning similarities between systems that intuitively do not bear any resemblence. His statements into the theory come from intensive simulations carried out by scientists currently working in the field.
A very minor criticism of the book lies in the fact that this field of science is extremely underdeveloped. A very new subject such as this has little material on which to base a review book such as this. Consequently, much of the text involves looking at a small amount of network theory from different angles and illuminating with different examples. This however could be advantageous for those who like a more relaxed pace of learning.
Nevertheless I am glad that I picked up this book as it provides an extremely lucid and easy to read introduction to the fascinating modern science of networks.
... Read more ›3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anyone intrigued by tricky scientific problems and their solutions will be amply satisfied by this clear account of the "small-world" phenomenon. We've all experienced it: perhaps while on holiday abroad you meet someone who lives on your street; or when travelling by train you sit next to someone who years ago knew your parents. Buchanan details how recent discoveries in various scientific fields show these not to be coincidences, but indications of a peculiar "underlying patterning" in the systems and networks that populate nature and civilisation. And although the opening chapters contain the most excitement, it is fascinating and readable throughout.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Buchanan points out the hidden networks that tie together both the physical world and the world of consciousness, showing that amongst other things the Internet, electrical grids, the brain and the global economy are all systems with an underlying pattern that shares nature's design.
Physics, biology and other sciences have uncovered a multitude of unexpected connections between the operation of the human world and the functioning of other seemingly unrelated things. Many networks that seemed to be random are turning out to have a hidden order as revealed by the discipline of Complexity Theory.
The most interesting sections are those on the Internet, on the spread of AIDS and on economic systems. The author's conclusion is that many aspects of the world are indeed simpler than they appear on the surface and that there is a hidden and powerful design that binds everything together.
This fascinating book confirms many of the findings that I have encountered in other titles like Universality by Mark Ward and Hidden Connections by Fritjof Capra. It concludes with a set of explanatory notes and a thorough index. Small World is a stimulating and thought provoking work.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By B M Cross
Format:Hardcover
If you have ever bumped into a friend in Outer Mongolia and tried to explain this to yourself using the laws of probability, and then on the way back passed a friend of a friend riding the other way on a Yak, you will end up mentally dumping everything you ever knew about averages and probability. Panic not, read Mark Buchanan's book, 'Small World' and your confidence in a scientific, predictable, orderly world will be restored.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Buchanan points out the hidden networks that tie together both the physical world and the world of consciousness, showing that amongst other things the Internet, electrical grids, the brain and the global economy are all systems with an underlying pattern that shares nature's design.
Physics, biology and other sciences have uncovered a multitude of unexpected connections between the operation of the human world and the functioning of other seemingly unrelated things. Many networks that seemed to be random are turning out to have a hidden order as revealed by the discipline of Complexity Theory.
Physics, biology and other sciences have uncovered a multitude of unexpected connections between the operation of the human world and the functioning of other seemingly unrelated things. Many networks that seemed to be random are turning out to have a hidden order as revealed by the discipline of Complexity Theory.
The most interesting sections are those on the Internet, on the spread of AIDS and on economic systems. The author's conclusion is that many aspects of the world are indeed simpler than they appear on the surface and that there is a hidden and powerful design that binds everything together.
This fascinating book confirms many of the findings that I have encountered in other titles like Universality by Mark Ward and Hidden Connections by Fritjof Capra. It concludes with a set of explanatory notes and a thorough index. Small World is a stimulating and thought provoking work.
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