Customer Reviews

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The surprising answer is yes. I picked this book up after reading Steven Strogatz's Sync which mentions a great deal about the science of networks. Buchanan explains how networks exist everywhere - the net, the web, the power grid, our circle of friends, our sex partners - and that they are in fact very similar to one another.

The phrase "six degrees of separation" comes from the fact that two randomly chosen people, A and B, will on average be connected by six social links. A knows C who knows D who knows E who knows F who knows G who finally knows B. Considering the world has over 6 billion people, an average separation of 6 seems unbelievable small, but the explanation of this incredible phenomenon lies in the makeup of our social network. Our close friends know each other but our cluster of friends has weak ties to other clusters through acquaintances, people we really don't know that well - that's why when one is looking for a job, it's better to tell an acquaintance rather than a friend so that our inquiry can jump to other clusters. Our social network is essentially highly clustered but enough links exist between these clusters to allow us to jump from ourselves to any other person through just an average of six links. Buchanan shows us how this kind of network exists everywhere as mentioned above although he distinguishes between egalitarian networks where clusters are roughly the same size and aristocratic networks such as the WWW where gigantic hubs like Amazon.com exist that link to millions of websites.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book deals with sexual networks. It turns out that in the network of sex partners, certain people have a great many more links than the average person in the network. Buchanan explains how the structure of the sexual network actually accounts for the rapid spread of HIV. The virus spread quickly because the hubs in the network spread it to their numerous partners. In fact, it turns out that a significant percentage of the inital HIV cases had a sexual relationship with one particular flight attendant.

As I wrote in my review for Strogatz's Sync, we are entering an era of science where disparate fields of study are being linked because many phenomena that we used to regard as unrelated now appear to have very similar underlying bases. It is exciting to read books like Nexus because it illustrates this point. You should definitely read this book if your are interested in the science of networks and want to know how so many different phenomena are being explained by the same underlying principles.

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 Beyond Chaos 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.

Actually, I bought this book with the intention of reading about genetics algorithms although I was pleasantly surprised with the out come of the book.

The book is about how our large world is small and what seems chaotic is actually an organized small network.

The author starts with how networks in nature relate to networks in technology. A very strong case for "6 degrees of separation" for our society and "19 degrees of (link) separation" for the Internet. The rest of the book explains with historical examples how scientists were able to prove the networking concepts through human decision and thought process.

I gave this book 4 star because I did not think that the conclusion had the continuity of the other chapters. I would recommend this book to all individuals who would be interested in reading and understanding the connections and influences of nature in our "connected" world.

Have fun understanding that you closer then you think to the person next door.

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.

two books on almost the same subject, Nexus and Barabasi's "Linked" both gave a very readable, rich in content
and ideas account of the nascent science of "connected world".
Despite huge difference judged by Amazon popularity contest, Nexus is not lesser to Linked. Mark Buchanan is albeit not a professional, but has a solid grasp on all the areas he covers.
He had a PhD in physics, then went on to become a science editor and writer. This is not necessarily a handicap, he writes with about equal distance to all the areas, therefore gives a more balanced view. I especially liked his telling of the "strength of weak links"; social capital parts.

In short, readers would benefit reading both to have a comprehensive view. As a matter of fact the stories herein should make a reader think, pose more questions. Keep tuned, I heard that more scientists are writting now for general readers in this related field and I hope the good examples set by Barabasi and Buchanan are just beginning of the healthy new trend.

This book has some really interesting ideas, mostly pertaining to what mathematicians call "graph theory." My only criticism, which may be a positive thing for many people, is that there is no math in the book. This is a very readable book--something that you can quickly read on an airplane. Once you learn about the key "ideas," I recommend that you follow up with additional research to learn the mathematics behind the ideas. The author does seem a bit wordy about the "six degrees of separation" phenomenon. Even people as dumb as I am get the idea after hearing about it several times. The book is good, but it needs some mathematics to quantify the 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.

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.

Nexus is a truly remarkable book. It is a popular science attempt to present and explain one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries of the last century: modern network theory. It focuses especially on two classical theories, the Small World Phenomenon and the Strength of Weak Ties, and elaborates and enlarges on them with some recent mathematical discoveries. Despite the fact that much of the recent developments are heavily mathematized the book remains faithful to its popular scientific approach. Thus it deliveres what it promises.

Mark Buchanan manages to keep the delicate balance between intuitive understanding and rigorous analysis; a balance that most popular science books I have read fail to keep. Thus it offers both an intruiging and stimulating read as well as a truly convincing and enlightening scientific argument (beat that you postmodern pseudoscientists!) Another mark of its excellence is that while doing its declared tast it simultaneously treats the reader a veritable tour de force of the collected scientific wisdom of the modern world. In that it reminds of another excellent recent book, namely The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Both books thus have plenty of added value and are a feast for the senses as well as the mind.

At the same time the book manages to infuse the reader with a sense of optimism about the future of science and humankind; an important accomplishment given the many attacks that science has received lately by many pessimistic and nihilistic postmodernists. This fact also makes the book the more enjoyable; few people really want to read pessimistic monologues. In conclusion: everybody with an interest in social or physical networks should read it. This is a theory of tremendous explanatory power. A prime nobel prize candidate.

From Gleick's "Chaos" on I've read lots of books in this area as one who teaches in the area of religion and science. But this book stands out above most books in the field because of the way Buchanan writes. He makes the complex clear without simplifying through his use of language, his syntax, and his examples.

It reads a little like a "thriller" because you are drawn on to see how it all comes out. I have recommended it to people who ordinarily are not up to reading in this area, and I have recommended it to specialists as well. It is a great read and a stretching learning experience.