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Describing The Web With Physics
Fungii writes: "There is a fascinating article over on physicsweb.com about 'The physics of the Web.' It gets a little technical, but it is a really interesting subject, and is well worth a read." And if you missed it a few months ago, the IBM study describing "the bow tie theory" (and a surprisingly disconnected Web) makes a good companion piece. One odd note is the reseachers' claim that the Web contains "nearly a billion documents," when one search engine alone claims to index more than a third beyond that, but I guess new and duplicate documents will always make such figures suspect.
As a senior undergraduate in combined honours physics and computer science, I hereby pronounce you a moron. The researchers first talk about the structure of the web (hyperlinks, etc.), then they talk about the physical structure (Achilles Heel, virus threshold, etc.). You must have missed the transition, Mullusk.
The interesting thing is that both the web and the physical network follow this power-law structure (or scale-free, as the "Physics Boys" call it).
Oh, don't think it's possible to study the physical structure of the internet? I'd like to introduce you to a new and powerful tool called traceroute [yes, that was sarcasm]. BTW, you can buy maps of the internet from ThinkGeek, in case traceroute is too much for you.
How the hell did that guy get modded up, anyway?