Time, Berlin and Albert

I was having a conversation about the future of travel today, and one underlying theme kept recurring which was the necessity of networking; more specifically, the ability to change quickly between networks. This is something that seems to be a necessary factor for future transport, that perhaps we will still have various forms of transport, but that we will need to change between these forms seemlessly.

Coming back to this idea of time ruling travel instead of distance, I’ve been getting deeper into the mathematics of networks (phew) which I’m cunningly trying to skirt around while still trying to absorb the interesting bits. The work of Fabio Lamanna an his time=net.work is particularily interesting and relevant in his study of the berlin transportation network. Lamanna’s work is extremely inspired by the Hungarian scientist Albert-László Barabási and his book Linked: The New Science of Networks, which is interesting in that it formulates a mathematical formula for the growth and development of networks.

“Barabási has found that the websites that form the network (of the WWW) have certain mathematical properties. The conditions for these properties to occur are threefold. The first is that the network has to be expanding, growing. This precondition of growth is very important as the idea of emergence comes with it. It is constantly evolving and adapting. That condition exists markedly with the world wide web. The second is the condition of preferential attachment, that is, nodes (websites) will wish to link themselves to hubs (websites) with the most connections. The third condition is what is termed competitive fitness which in network terms means its rate of attraction.”

It is interesting to think of the future of the network of trains in a similar way to the current internet network. The ease at which I link to a new website now, may be how easy it will be in the future to link to a new travel destination. Incredibly conceptual I know, but something to discuss and think about surely.