Social networks that balance themselves

Social networks that balance themselves

Fri, 04/05/2012
16:30 		Professor Steven Strogatz (Cornell University) Colloquia Add to calendar L2
Social networks that balance themselves
 Consider a fully-connected social network of people, companies,or countries, modeled as an undirected complete graph with real numbers onits edges. Positive edges link friends; negative edges link enemies.I'll discuss two simple models of how the edge weights of such networksmight evolve over time, as they seek a balanced state in which "the enemy ofmy enemy is my friend." The mathematical techniques involve elementaryideas from linear algebra, random graphs, statistical physics, anddifferential equations. Some motivating examples from internationalrelations and social psychology will also be discussed. This is joint workwith Seth Marvel, Jon Kleinberg, and Bobby Kleinberg.