Rating: 
Summary: six degrees?
Review: Six Degrees has been the only book that I¡¦ve been reading lately. It was the description of this book to me by a friend that caught my attention. Can I possibly be just 6 people away from any other person on the other side or the world? After I started reading it, the book sucked me right in, and I found this book quite different from other books in the same genera. Duncan J. Watts, the author of this book, unlike other specialists in their area who often take an absolute and definite view in their opinions, instead adapted a more humble attitude in his own works. He open questioned the possible flaws and mistakes in his own theories and opinions, in which I think granted the readers some space to think, and to better digest the contents of this book. Duncan J. Watts gathered opinions and research results from different areas to develop his theories. Network, as Duncan himself had mentioned, is an area of science with much more yet to be discovered. I got to say, this is some hard science that this book is discussing. It covers materials all the way from the study of social structures, advanced math, to advanced physics, and much more. Also according to Duncan, the science of network could actually be more closely to our lives then we imagined. Diseases, social structure, and economy are all under the fields of network. There¡¦s no way that a regular high school student like me could get a complete hold of such a complex structure of materials. Yet, Duncan¡¦s explanations and thoughtful examples successfully illustrated a number of clear pictures in my minds and really helped me a lot in the understanding of his concepts. I suggest everyone to read this book, even though one might not fully understand the book, it does give inspirations and provide new perspectives. I am glad that I read this book, it had an great impact upon my view of the world, and reminded how closely things could be related unexpectedly.
Rating: 
Summary: Omnipresent networks explained
Review: The author calls the science of networks a science of real people, where stuff like friendships, rumours, diseases, fashion and music trends, commerce and finance are all involved. He explains how this science fits into the larger scheme of scientific progress and what it tells us about the world in our connected age. The book really covers two narratives: The history and development of the science of networks itself, plus the manifestation of network phenomena in the real world.
Chapters 2 to 5 investigate real world networks, chapters 3 to 5 consider the creation and implication of various models of networked systems, whilst chapters six (Epidemics and Failures), seven (Decisions, Delusions and the Madness of Crowds), eight (Thresholds, Cascades and Predictability) and nine (Innovation, Adaptation and Recovery) explore the spread of diseases, recovery, fads, politics, finance and organizational strength.
Some of the lessons of this thought-provoking book are that distance is deceptive and that in connected systems, cause and effect are related in complicated and sometimes misleading ways. In the latter regard, Watts discusses the many initial rejections that Kerouac's later very popular classic On The Road had to endure and the similar case of Rowling's first Harry Potter book.
The Further Reading section is arranged by chapter and provides recommendations of websites and books on that particular topic. The text contains tables, figures and some black and white illustrations and the book concludes with a bibliography and index. The Hidden Connections by Fritjof Capra and Small World by Mark Buchanan are similar books that I have found to be interesting and informative in this regard.
Rating: 
Summary: Complexity through connections
Review: The work of Duncan J. Watts was admittedly inspired by the work of social-psychologist at Harvard University, Stanley Milgram, in the late 1967 on experiment on the problem called "small world" problem: "anyone person in the world could be reached through a network of friends in only a few steps; in Watts language, "after the cocktail party banter in which two strangers discover that they have a mutual acquaintance and remind each other what "a small world" it is. Surprisingly, Milgram's results led to the phrase "six degrees of separation": the degree of network of friends between me and you will never be more than six! I know someone who knows someone who knows someone else who knows someone that knows someone who becomes my friend!
I feel a must to urge the readers to read the book in order to understand further what science of network can give us. Among the popular books of networks, reading Watts' Six Degrees is important since the book was made seriously by the author for unlimited readers. It is a time for physics gives something valuable on constructing new scientific sociological work to day.
Hokky Situngkir
Bandung Fe Institute
Rating:
Summary: One of the best written books of the year
Review: This was one of the most fascinating books I've read recently. Although I had heard of the concept of at most six links between any two people on the earth and the connection with Kevin Bacon as well as a famous mathematician whose name I forget right now, I was not aware of the origin of this concept. Watts tells a fascinating tale of statisticians, social workers, mathematicians, physicists, network engineers, and several other disciplines whose work derives from or adds to the whole science of networks and connectedness. The networking and connectedness of people studying connectedness is as fascinating as any topic in the book. It almost makes me want to go back to college and choose some aspect of network theory as a thesis. Exciting book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best written books of the year
Review: This was one of the most fascinating books I've read recently. Although I had heard of the concept of at most six links between any two people on the earth and the connection with Kevin Bacon as well as a famous mathematician whose name I forget right now, I was not aware of the origin of this concept. Watts tells a fascinating tale of statisticians, social workers, mathematicians, physicists, network engineers, and several other disciplines whose work derives from or adds to the whole science of networks and connectedness. The networking and connectedness of people studying connectedness is as fascinating as any topic in the book. It almost makes me want to go back to college and choose some aspect of network theory as a thesis. Exciting book.
Rating:
Summary: Hungry after 1 hour...
Review: Very interesting material, written in an entertaining conversational way. When I was done, I had an empty feeling. Now what? Chapter 9 is perfect example of this. Watts explains how the Toyota production system almost ground to a halt because of a devastating fire at one of the key nodes [factories] in the supply network. Great story, but no details on how the network actually recovered from the disaster, or how others can use that experience to apply to their situations. Overall a good, general introduction to network thinking. Read it along with "Linked" by Barabasi.
Rating:
Summary: networks in a variety of contexts
Review: Watts is one of the co-discoverers of small-world networks and this book joins others like 'Linked' by Barabasi and 'Nexus' by Mark Buchanan as a user-friendly introduction to the study of networks. It manages to cover a lot of ground and makes a persuasive case for the use of network models in fields as diverse as biology, economics and management and physics. I think this will make it interesting to a whole range of people. As a Math student studying biological networks I found the recap of the work on small-worlds very clear and useful. The style is fluent and brisk and the book expands on the types of networks under consideration in an exploratory and interesting manner. As the author shifts contexts, the need for networks with different features is made apparent and the plot unfolds like a good detective story. The bibliography is pretty cool too - it seems unusual that the same person would care to read the variety of items listed, but I think that's what might make this book appealing and stimulating to people working in a range of fields. In addition to small-world networks, there is fair coverage of scale-free networks and random nets, percolation and disease models. I'm not as mystified by the number '1' being a critical parameter in the connectivity of random networks and the reproduction rate for disease spreading. The sections on industrial economics and fads are at least as good as those of Barabasi and Buchanan. And the interesting details of more recent models and modifications (including mention of analytical solutions and the range of approaches to obtaining them) are presented in a weirdly informative non-technical manner. Hope there's a more technical work on the way
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