Bigideas Quotes

“In a sense we can see network theory as a natural extension of statistical physics a kind of "sticky" version of many-particle systems in which encounters between individuals lead not simply to collisions but to the formation of permanent, elastic links. The network then becomes a kind of map of the history of the system, just as the expansion of the Internet over time is recorded in the growing web that it weaves. In networks the past matters: a memory of it is frozen in place and shapes the present. These networks provide a graphic image of the extent to which our lives become entwined in ways as innumerable as they are barely fathomable.”
― Philip Ball, Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another