Concept
Average path length is one of the three most robust measures of network topology, along with its clustering coefficient and its degree distribution. Some examples are: the average number of clicks which will lead you from one website to another, or the number of people you will have to communicate through, on an average, to contact a complete stranger. It should not be confused with the diameter of the network, which is defined as the maximal distance between any two nodes in the network (see Distance (graph theory)).
The average path length distinguishes an easily negotiable network from one which is complicated and inefficient, with a shorter average path length being more desirable. However, the average path length is simply what the path length will most likely be. The network itself might have some very remotely connected nodes and many nodes which are neighbors of each other.
Read more about this topic: Average Path Length
Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“Jesus abolished the very concept of “guilt”Mhe denied any cleavage between God and man. He lived this unity of God and man as his “glad tidings” ... and not as a prerogative!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The concept of a person is logically prior to that of an individual consciousness. The concept of a person is not to be analysed as that of an animated body or an embodied anima.”
—Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (b. 1919)