Networks - All About All

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A wide variety of systems of interconnected components are called networks.

Specific types of networks

Media

• Radio networks, which create and distribute radio programming
• Television networks, which create and distribute television programming

Transport and infrastructure

• Transport networks (roads, railroads, shipping routes and airlines)
• Pipelines (gas, petroleum, water, sewage),
• Electricity networks (electric power - generation, transmission and distribution).

Electronics and data processing

• Electrical networks - a network of electrical components
• Digital network - a coupled network of digital (binary) components, for combinational or sequential logic (state machine) implementation
• Neural network

Computer networks and telecommunications

Note: A distinction is made between wide area networks, (WANs) and local area networks (LANs)

• Computer networks, which transfer information between computers. (Specific configurations include star networks and grid networks.)

  The Internet is a large-scale computer network. Also, a website and the whole World Wide Web are networks of webpages, a link web.

• Telecommunications networks
  • Public switched telephone networks, which route audio signals from one telephone to another
• List of mobile network operators lists all major mobile phone carriers across the world.

Human socialization

• When people meet with each other either for socializing or for assistance, the practice is sometimes referred to as networking. Networking is the process of developing and maintaining quality relationships that enrich your life and empower you to achieve your goals.
  • Social networks, business networks and entrepreneurial networks, are studied in sociology and economics
  • The Old Boy Network is a term used when people with prior connections (typically school, college, work, fraternity or clubs) use their prior connections in this manner, or as an informal grapevine.
• Sexual networks
• criminal networks
• Support networks, such as the Samaritans or Alcoholics Anonymous
• Espionage networks, in which controllers "run" agents in small groups. These groups then connect together, making larger networks.
• Business networks

Physics

• complex networks, for example scale-free networks or small-world_networks

Mathematics

In mathematics, a network is usually called a graph. To put it another way, network theory is the applied mathematics counterpart of graph theory. General-purpose mathematical models of network structures and associated algorithms have been developed in graph theory. Computer network routing is a direct application of graph theory to the real world.

Other

• Spatial networks (either urban networks or networks of rooms within buildings) are the subject of study for space syntax and various other urban theories.
• Network externality in economics
• The film Network.

Further reading

By network scientists:

1. Linked: The New Science of Networks, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Perseus Publishing, 2002. Hardcover Textbook. ISBN 0738206679.
2. Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, Mark Buchanan, W. W. Norton, 2002, hardcover, 256 pages, ISBN 0393041530
3. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, Duncan J. Watts, W. W. Norton, February, 2003, Hardcover: 448 pages. ISBN 0393041425
4. Evolution of Networks: from biological networks to the Internet and WWW, S.N. Dorogovtsev and J.F.F. Mendes, Oxford University Press, January, 2003, ISBN 0198515901

Consumer studies using network theory:

1. Tipping Point: How Little things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown, 2002, trade paperback, 304 pages, ISBN 0316346624
2. Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy, Edward B. Keller, Jonathan L. Berry, Douglas B. Reeves, Free Press, 2003, paperback, ISBN 0743227301
3. Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, Alissa Quart, Perseus, 2002, hardcover, 256 pages, ISBN 0738206644

(bibliography derived from New York Times article, January 25, 2003 "Connect, They Say, Only Connect" (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/arts/25WATT.html))