Media and Information Cascades
Article: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth Information, with the aid of modern technology, spreads fast. An author of an article entitled “How technology disrupted the truth”, argues that ‘fact’ has become more of a subjective term in recent years. She starts off by giving the example of ‘piggate’, a minor scandal in the UK that alleged that former prime […]
Using Networks to Understand Climate Dynamics
Networks pervade nature: From understanding hyena behavior to modeling earthquake physics, a range of complex phenomena can be modeled using basic concepts of graph theory and network phenomena. One of these phenomena is central to our lives: precipitation patterns. A study published in PLoS ONE used network theory to model patterns in precipitation on large […]
Six Degrees of Separation
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/aug/03/internet.email The nature of social networks to contain many short paths is called the small-world phenomenon, or “six degrees of separation”. This theory was first developed by a study by social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, who assigned experiment participants to forward a letter to a target living in Sharon, MA, knowing only the target’s name, address. A […]