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Conference on the Theory and Applications of Networks
Frank Harary attended the conference
on the theory and applications of networks held in Mexico City on 8 December 2003. He gave
the keynote address, "What is a network? An interdisciplinary universal mathematical model".
In his talk, he presented examples of social networks and useful
networks in psychology, anthropology, chemistry, physics, biology,
computer science, and linguistics.
His paper will appear in a forthcoming book edited by Jorge Gil and
Samuel Schmidt, to be published by UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma
de Mexico.
Excerpts from the talk:
"A network consists of a graph structure together with an assigment of
real world meanings to the nodes [points] of the graph G, and edges
[line segments]. Thus every "social network" is a network where the
nodes are people and the edges are interpersonal relations. Every
molecule is a network in which the nodes represent atoms and the edges
stand for chemical bonds. In physics, nodes can model particles and
edges attraction or repulsion. In anthopology, nodes can be people
and edges can be specified as siblings or marriage or descendants.
In computer science, an architecture ca be realized by a graph where
the nodes are chips and the edges indicate communication between
chips, etc. It appears that networks pervade all disciplines!" Frank Harary
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