Orkut has become a craze eversince it was introduced. It has amazing properties. You can find almost anyone who has access to internet connection and lot of time to spare logged on to it.
Ever wondered why Orkut says You are connected to 19,584,711 people through 66 friends ??
Say, you are connected to 50 friends. Those 50 friends may have 50 friends each. Some of them even have 300 friends!! so u are already connected on an average to 50+50*50+... Hence the huge number. Now this was stating the obvious. This is technically called a network. Being a friends' network, its a social network. I know Im still stating the obvious :-D But do you know studying networks is an intense field of research !! Every year people publish 1000's of technical papers in this field!! So in the network language, the individual is the node and the links or the edges are the connections between the individuals.
Now, have you ever noticed that most of the profiles you visit, even if its a stranger's, turns out to be connected to your profile through 3,4,6,7 or 8 links. For instance, A > aa > bb > cc > dd > X. Most of the times A turns out to be connected to X through a bb (say) who has 300 friends. Now this is technically called the Six Degrees of Separation. (You must have also seen a documentary on TV by this name.) The concept is that one can always find a connection to anybody in the world via six steps on an average!! In the given example , A is connected to X via 5 steps. In real world, I am connected to our learned president APJK in 5 steps !! So the degree of separation is 5. Now, try this with anyone in the world and Im sure you can find some connection or other !!! Technically, such networks with short pathlengths are called small world networks. Yupp, it is indeed a small world. Its just not a simple say-so but a fact..
Do you see the possibilities!! I am connected to ShahRukh or Zulfi through 6 degrees :-D All I have to do is to find the intermediate connections !! Hmm hard work ahead ...
Such short pathlengths are seen in many other networks. You see any system.. you find a network there. Examples galore - Capillary network inside your body, Airport network, Road network, power-grid network, rail network. Internet is also a network!! In the earlier A--> X example, suppose bb breaks up with aa, your network breaks. bb is called a hub. Exactly this way, if a power station, which supplies to N smaller station fails, you will face a breakdown. US blackouts were caused due to a similar reason. So, hubs are the most prone to attacks and are the backbones of the network. So you see, this field has immense potential in terms of applications. Many fields of study are employed in researching this topic like Statistical Mechanics, Graph Theory.. He he I know.. we physicists are experts in converting any interesting topic to mundane mathematics :-D
Ever wondered why Orkut says You are connected to 19,584,711 people through 66 friends ??
Say, you are connected to 50 friends. Those 50 friends may have 50 friends each. Some of them even have 300 friends!! so u are already connected on an average to 50+50*50+... Hence the huge number. Now this was stating the obvious. This is technically called a network. Being a friends' network, its a social network. I know Im still stating the obvious :-D But do you know studying networks is an intense field of research !! Every year people publish 1000's of technical papers in this field!! So in the network language, the individual is the node and the links or the edges are the connections between the individuals.
Now, have you ever noticed that most of the profiles you visit, even if its a stranger's, turns out to be connected to your profile through 3,4,6,7 or 8 links. For instance, A > aa > bb > cc > dd > X. Most of the times A turns out to be connected to X through a bb (say) who has 300 friends. Now this is technically called the Six Degrees of Separation. (You must have also seen a documentary on TV by this name.) The concept is that one can always find a connection to anybody in the world via six steps on an average!! In the given example , A is connected to X via 5 steps. In real world, I am connected to our learned president APJK in 5 steps !! So the degree of separation is 5. Now, try this with anyone in the world and Im sure you can find some connection or other !!! Technically, such networks with short pathlengths are called small world networks. Yupp, it is indeed a small world. Its just not a simple say-so but a fact..
Do you see the possibilities!! I am connected to ShahRukh or Zulfi through 6 degrees :-D All I have to do is to find the intermediate connections !! Hmm hard work ahead ...
Such short pathlengths are seen in many other networks. You see any system.. you find a network there. Examples galore - Capillary network inside your body, Airport network, Road network, power-grid network, rail network. Internet is also a network!! In the earlier A--> X example, suppose bb breaks up with aa, your network breaks. bb is called a hub. Exactly this way, if a power station, which supplies to N smaller station fails, you will face a breakdown. US blackouts were caused due to a similar reason. So, hubs are the most prone to attacks and are the backbones of the network. So you see, this field has immense potential in terms of applications. Many fields of study are employed in researching this topic like Statistical Mechanics, Graph Theory.. He he I know.. we physicists are experts in converting any interesting topic to mundane mathematics :-D
12 comments:
Orkut is named after the guy who thought of the idea. So there is a Mr. Orkut somewhere who must be mighty proud of his grey cells :-D
Like we say here Hi Fannaah (:P) (thats hi-funda with a nasal sound at n's ) That O of Orkut has been zoomed in by the pundit :-D
hehehehe....it's very obvious you are in the final years of your phd. It shows...networks is defly an interesting subject
he he
if i continue in research ill branch out to networks :)
try this sometime:
with 0 friends, you are still connected to someone. how? think. its a mistake that orkut does :P
and yeah... heard of networks and all from CSE friends... itne baar sun chuka hoon... ki ab bore ho gaya :(
how ? does it also count community connections?
never tried. but even when u dont have communities, u'll have connections :P
some algo blunders :D
hey i thought u cudn't hav 0 friends on orkut... u will allways be connected to atleast the guy who invited u...
this is the whole funda of this network thing...isn't it...
the number that u are connected to is the total number of ppl on orkut... think thats the way it is
No but I have seen ppl having zero friends too. I guess its cos of the gmail login. Or maybe something else...
In case, you have not heard, this might be a good read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Bacon_Game
Thanks vaibhav :) There is such a thing in the scientific community too. Here the researchers connect thru their collaborators to some XXX. I have forgotten XXX's name. Ill put up the link If I find that again.
Hi Z,
I somehow reached in this webpage!
Aren't you talking about the Erdos number ? Erdos was a Hungarian mathematician i think! ( googling "Erdos number" should giv u more info)
adios,
Ranjith
Exactly ranjith :-)
Erdos and Renyi have contributed much to the random graph theory :)
Thanks for reading my blog :-D Did u read the whole of it? :-D Wat comments!!
Post a Comment