Network

A wide variety of systems of interconnected components are called networks. Specific examples include:

• transport networks,
  • roads,
  • railroads,
  • shipping routes and
  • airlines,
  • pipelines (gas, petroleum, water, sewage),
• electric circuits - a network of electrical components.
• electricity networks (electric power - generation, transmission and distribution).
• social networks and business networks, studied in sociology and economics
  • when people meet with each other either for socializing or for assistance, the practice is sometimes referred to as networking. Informal meetings of people are sometimes referred to as the Old Boy Network.
  • sexual networks
  • criminal networks
• computer networks, which transfer information between computers. (Specific configurations include star networks and grid networks.) The Internet is a large-scale computer network. Also, a website and the whole World Wide Web are networks of webpages, a link web. Note: A distinction is made between wide area networks, (WANs) and local area networks (LANs)
• telecommunications networks
  • public switched telephone networks, which route audio signals from one telephone to another
  • radio networks, which create and distribute radio programming
  • television networks, which create and distribute television programming
  • financial networks, for applications such as funds transfer and credit card authorization.
• network externality in economics
• neural network

In mathematics, a network is usually called a graph. To put it another way, network theory is the applied mathematics counterpart of graph theory. General-purpose mathematical models of network structures and associated algorithms have been developed in graph theory. Computer network routing is a direct application of graph theory to the real world.

Networks can be characterized in a number of different ways. For example, many networks are observed to be scale-free networks, in which a few network nodes act as "very connected" hubs.

Further reading

By Consumer studies using Network is also the title of an Academy Award-winning film.