Kind: captions
Language: en
what does a social network look like you
know the links of friendship between
people it often feels like we make
friends through a random series of
chance encounters so you might think
that social networks should look random
too something like
this but it turns out real life social
networks don't look like that they look
more like
this there's a pattern here sort of Hubb
and spoke shape people cluster into
groups that are linked to each other
through a few hubs you know who those
hubs are the Social Butterflies who
introduce everyone to everyone
else a network that looks like this is
called a small world Network because
through these key people we're all
connected to each other in just a few
steps it's the classic idea of Six
Degrees of Separation and if you're
thinking this sort of network shape
looks familiar you're right many of the
networks that Engineers design like
Airline routes and power grids and the
service that power the internet they all
have the same pattern and that's because
small world networks have a special
feature they maximize connectivity while
minimizing the number of connections
fewer connections mean resources can
travel through the network more
efficiently in fact scientists now know
that this pattern appears spontaneously
all the time in nature found in places
like Rivers the food webs of ecosystems
and even inside our own bodies why for
the same reason we organize our power
grid this way gives you the most
connectivity for your wiring cost take
your brain for example it's 10 billion
neurons are wired in a network that
scientists call the connectome the brain
needs different regions to be able to
communicate effectively so it makes
sense for the connectome to have a small
world pattern in fact the brain seems to
want to wire itself this way things like
brain tumors can break up the formation
but when the brain tries to recover it
goes back to a small world shape
rewiring and regenerating its Network
work we also know that children's brains
start off looking randomly connected but
as they age and their brains develop
connections are lost and it becomes more
small world likee and structured on the
other hand people with neurological
disorders like autism have brains that
look like big worlds missing those key
connections between
clusters if it's the connections in our
brains that matter maybe Consciousness
itself emerges from small world
architecture it might seem almost
magical that this Hub and spoke pattern
keeps appearing all over the universe
but it's not magical it's mathematical
we see other kinds of patterns too
appearing and reappearing everywhere in
nature take the bell curve for example
which describes natural Randomness and
all sorts of things from breeding
populations to the velocities of stars
or the Fibonacci sequence which shows up
in the number of spirals you count on
the head of a sunflower these patterns
hint at the math and physics lying
underneath reality it's a signal that
the Gears of the universe are turning
away in that way our small world social
networks don't just connect us to each
other they also reflect the mechanics of
the cosmos
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