Call me
| 10 December, 2010 | Richard P. Grant |
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We Brits tend to be a reserved lot. At least, that’s the reputation we have. But boy, we can talk.
Just how much is shown by this analysis from researchers at MIT, Cornell University and University College London, with help from the BT Group in a little town you’ve probably never even heard of (Ipswich). The picture represents bidirectional traffic cooked up from 12 billion telephone calls over a one-month period.
Each of the 3042 pixels represents an area 9.5 km by 9.5 km, the opacity dependent on the length of the call time. London sits like a giant medulla, controlling the rest of the country.
For more, read the (Open Access) paper at PLoS, Redrawing the Map of Great Britain from a Network of Human Interactions. Or simply enjoy the graphic.
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Ooh, pretty! I’d love to see the same map, but showing calls to/from abroad, just for the thrill of London mutating into a giant octopus!
First, we take Manhattan?
A whole different level of social network analysis. And beautiful, too!
London seems to the ‘attractor’ organizing or driving the social network, this might be true of many busy metropolises of the world. Does this have any implications for the architecture and design of communication networks and town planning?
That’s a very good point.
And yes, of course—London is the centre of the Universe, so it’s not really surprising…