How Many Licks Does it Take To Get to the Center of the Internet?
The Internet may be referred to as the "information superhighway," but a better analogy might be an enormous, hulking Tootsie Roll pop. Check out this colorful new Internet map (click the image to enlarge) from physicists at Tel-Aviv University in Israel and you’ll see what we mean. It’s a mathematical representation of the pipes, routers and other bits of hardware that ferry data across the Web. At the map’s red gooey center is a cluster of 100 networks operated by massive corporations like ATT Worldnet and Google. Its purple crunchy outer shell consists mostly of small ISPs. The trouble with being on the periphery is that your data must travel through the congested center, which is sort of like flying through O’Hare on your way from New York to Los Angeles. Basically, it’s really inefficient. The researchers don’t offer much in the way of solutions but say their model will help scientists better track the evolution of the Web, which in turn will help people innovate ways to make it less like a lollipop and more like, well, a superhighway.
If want to learn more about the map and you’re undaunted by math speak like “k-shell decomposition,” “percolation theory,” and “fractal geometry,” download the paper. —Nicole Dyer
The link to the paper is broken.
Posted by: Yearry | June 18, 2007 at 02:38 PM
What are the size and color scales representing?
Posted by: jkster | June 18, 2007 at 10:38 PM
Few comments and corrections
1. The Internet map comes from new data on the structure of the Internet, available at www.netdimes.org. Everybody are encouraged to visit our website and contribute some measurements to make the maps more accurate. The picture was generated with the Lanet-vi program of I. Alvarez-Hamelin et al. http://xavier.informatics.indiana.edu/lanet-vi.
2. The color code is the k-index of a node, which is the number of links a node has to other nodes in the center of the network. The size of a node is proportional to the total number of connections it has.
3. Data is transferred between nodes of the Internet, and not websites.
4. The authors of the paper are physicists and engineers at Bar-Ilan, Tel-Aviv and the Hebrew Universities in Israel.
Posted by: Shai Carmi | June 20, 2007 at 03:03 AM
"internet" and "web" are *not* synonymous- the Web is one of many services that run across the internet.
Posted by: zinky | June 20, 2007 at 06:48 PM
can someone explain the scale? The numbers mean absolutely nothing. At least from a quality point of view or QOS. http://www.templatestaff.com
Posted by: rahoorkhuit | June 20, 2007 at 06:56 PM
I taste the rainbow!
Posted by: PENIX | June 20, 2007 at 07:09 PM
useless image!
Posted by: scot | June 20, 2007 at 07:38 PM
The image is pretty, yet completely useless since you didn't label a damn thing. Like Axes, or even scale. Nice job nutjob.
Posted by: Trik | June 20, 2007 at 08:04 PM
OMG, ITS A GIANT FLOATING ANTBALL
Posted by: opie wan kenobi | June 20, 2007 at 08:31 PM
Actually the image is not useless, as it is a graph which doesn't need axes (neighbours are what are important).
Read the comments for interpretation of the numbers
Posted by: Jaxxed | June 20, 2007 at 08:42 PM
Interesting picture
Posted by: free wii | June 20, 2007 at 09:52 PM
dude - its totally the boob that I keep hearing that there are pitchers of on the internets
Posted by: jvc | June 20, 2007 at 10:59 PM
Sounds like we need a ringroad / bypass / expressway.
Posted by: RocketBootKid | June 21, 2007 at 04:45 AM
I liked xkcd's map more.
Posted by: c-dub | June 21, 2007 at 08:32 AM
The internet is a moving target no matter how simple you try to make it diagramatically it is always changing.
Hisenberg's uncertainty principle states that you can know the location or speed of an atomic particle not both.
Posted by: adger | June 21, 2007 at 09:51 AM
how many "clicks" does it take to get to the center of the internet ?
Posted by: tidiman07 | June 21, 2007 at 10:21 AM
Hey I thought I was the center of the universe and everything evolved around me including this mess!.
Posted by: mikeyintheoc | June 21, 2007 at 08:18 PM
I meant "revolves"
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Posted by: pharmacy-online | October 19, 2007 at 04:17 AM
it took me 825 licks
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