diego.blogger.de

On Thursday I heard a talk about giant amoeboid cells (20.2). While growing, complex structures with a vein system emerge. The speaker analyzed the veins of such a slime mould as a network. While attending the talk I just thought, ok, in the past similar structures have been studied in terms of fractals. Currently, network science (wiki, netsci) is experiencing a similar hype as the fractals did some decades ago. This particular example indicates – and this is my point – that the matter, problem, or system is very similar, but the approach, method, or theory has changed from chaos theory to network science. Are complex networks just another scientific fashion? Sure, there are many cases where it makes sense to apply network theory, such as social networks, where there are well defined nodes and links. However, there are also many cases where this is not so clear.

Nachtrag: Was vom Fraktal-Hype übrig blieb