The image above is at such a small size that it clearly something mobbing (networking), but the nodes could be anything. This could be a smart mob of people converging around events.
But the image is about knowledge converging as a network. It is from the new Scientific Journals Ontology Explorer by Science-Metrix. As you can see by clicking on the image above and clicking the “Map of Science” tab, the network is not of people, but of knowledge.
The open internet has allowed smart mobs of people to connect into the now enormously important social networking that has changed the world. Less recognized is that the open internet has allowed human knowledge — such as the sciences — to connect as well. That marvel is about to make the world smart by reflecting these networks of knowledge into the networks in our heads that we call our minds. The mirror we will be using is a web browser — soon to be available to everyone on earth.
Comments
@ 22:21
cool jets.
we are using similar mappings in our Lab research. here we are explaining it to parents. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUqx4raDGXc
such an exciting and amazing time to be learning.
@ 21:13
Fascinating groupings - interestingly, the arts and music show very little, if any, connectivity. Then again subdivisions within these (classical, modern, popular, folk, avante-guard, etc) are not acknowledged.
But my first thought studying the clusters, suggested possible school and faculty re-groupings? Should fine arts be grouped with literature, for example? (although they both already fall under the humanites, connections in the diagram suggest they might deserve to belong to the same school, even department.
@ 09:30
Before networking has been empowered by digital connectivity, education had to put each subject into one or two categories. In reality, most smaller subjects belong in several categories. Thomas Jefferson, for example, belongs in all of these subjects, and probably more: American Revolution, diplomacy, philosophies of liberty, slavery, architecture, exploration of American West, farming. In the emergence of subjects from the complexity of human knowledge and academics, TJ would show up as a node in many network patterns of ideas and history.