Experiments with igraph

Networks – social and biological – are all the rage, just now. Indeed, a recent entry at Duncan’s QOTD described the “hairball” network representation as the dominant cultural icon in molecular biology.

I’ve not had occasion to explore networks “professionally”, but have always been fascinated by both networks and the tools used to analyse them. My grasp of graph theory, the mathematics behind networks, is more or less summarised by this Wikipedia page. I’ve also been exploring the igraph library and thought I’d share a few of my “experiments with igraph”. As I say, I’m learning myself as I go along, so none of this should be taken as professional advice.

Let’s start with my favourite network – FriendFeed of course – and ask a few questions about everyone’s favourite group, The Life Scientists (TLS).