#29 – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi: The Hidden Order of Networks

Welcome back to Scaling Theory. My guest today is Albert-László Barabási, Professor of Network Science at Northeastern University and one of the most cited scientists alive with over 320 000 citations. His books include Linked, The Formula, and Network Science.

In 1999, Albert-László Barabási published a paper that changed how we understand networks. The finding was this: real-world networks are not random. They are dominated by hubs. A few nodes collect most of the links, and they do so because they already have them. In this episode, he explains the details of what he actually found. We then move to the scaling of networks, and the temptation to control them. We conclude with a discussion about art, ballet dancers, architecture, and what mapping careers across disciplines reveals about how networks really work.

You can follow me on X (@ProfSchrepel) and BlueSky (@ProfSchrepel).

References:

➝ Papers

Barabási, A.-L. & Albert, R. "Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks." Science 286, no. 5439 (1999): 509–512. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5439.509

Albert, R., Jeong, H. & Barabási, A.-L. "Diameter of the World-Wide Web." Nature 401 (1999): 130–131. https://doi.org/10.1038/43601

Watts, D.J. & Strogatz, S.H. "Collective Dynamics of 'Small-World' Networks." Nature 393 (1998): 440–442. https://doi.org/10.1038/30918

Erdős, P. & Rényi, A. "On Random Graphs." Publicationes Mathematicae 6 (1959): 290–297. https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/erdos59random.pdf

➝ Books

Barabási, A.-L. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked:_The_New_Science_of_Networks

Barabási, A.-L. Network Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. https://networksciencebook.com (open access)

Barabási, A.-L. The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2018. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/albert-laszlo-barabasi/the-formula/9780316505499