A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. That is, the fraction P(k) of nodes in the network having k connections to other nodes goes for large values of k as
where is a normalization constant and is a parameter whose value is typically in the range 2 < < 3, although occasionally it may lie outside these bounds.
Many networks are conjectured to be scale-free, including World Wide Web links, biological networks, and social networks, although the scientific community is still discussing these claims as more sophisticated data analysis techniques become available. Preferential attachment and the fitness model have been proposed as mechanisms to explain conjectured power law degree distributions in real networks.
Read more about Scale-free Network: History, Characteristics, Examples, Generative Models, Scale-free Ideal Network
Famous quotes containing the word network:
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)