Examples
Although many real-world networks are thought to be scale-free, the evidence often remains inconclusive, primarily due to the developing awareness of more rigorous data analysis techniques. As such, the scale-free nature of many networks is still being debated by the scientific community. A few examples of networks claimed to be scale-free include:
- Social networks, including collaboration networks. An example that has been studied extensively is the collaboration of movie actors in films.
- Sexual partners in humans, which affects the dispersal of sexually transmitted diseases.
- Many kinds of computer networks, including the internet and the webgraph of the World Wide Web.
- Some financial networks such as interbank payment networks
- Protein-Protein interaction networks.
- Semantic networks.
- Airline networks.
Scale free topology has been also found in high temperature superconductors. The qualities of a high-temperature superconductor — a compound in which electrons obey the laws of quantum physics, and flow in perfect synchrony, without friction — appear linked to the fractal arrangements of seemingly random oxygen atoms.
Read more about this topic: Scale-free Network
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