Scale-Free Networks

Learn about scale-free networks and their applications.

Scale-free networks

A scale-free network is a network that has the characteristic of having power-law distribution for the degree.

A power law is mathematically defined as:

This means that we have hubs, a small number of nodes that are connected to a lot of other nodes, therefore having a large degree, and lots of smaller nodes that are connected to few nodes, therefore having a small degree.

Here is an example of a power-law distribution for the degree, where P(k)P(k)is the probability of a random node having a degree k:k: ...