Editor's note: An interactive version of this graphic appears here.
People who are intrigued with physics are somewhat intrigued with computer science, too, but they are crazy about fashion. Who knew? Hilary Mason did. At Scientific American’s request, the chief scientist at bitly (www.bitly.com), which shortens URLs for Web users, examined 600 science Web page addresses sent to the company’s servers on August 23 and 24. Then she tracked 6,000 pages people visited next and mapped the connections (below).
The results revealed which subjects were strongly and weakly associated. Chemistry was linked to almost no other science. Biology was linked to almost all of them. Health was tied more to business than to food. But why did fashion connect strongly to physics? And why was astronomy linked to genetics? Check out the interactive graphic at www.ScientificAmerican.com and tell us what you make of it.
Note: This article was originally published in print as "The Links We Love."
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3 Comments
Add CommentAs a mature age (56 year old) PhD Candidate in Chemistry, who is also an active christian and likes to travel it is clear I am a long way from the mainstream, in fact I may soon be the only inhabitant on Mars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a web-active geoscientist, I am disappointed that my field did not make the nodal-cut. We are a very interrelated science and I feel certain that if we had been tracked, we would have been near the center of this traffic jam. We may not have had a freeway to Fashion, but surely we would have added a lane or two to our outer Chemistry colleagues…..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNavigation on the SA site is incredibly poor so apparently the 22 comments on the e-version of the print article are lost forever but here's my 2 cents. I agree with others, the methodology is suspect, sample too small, sample apparently restricted to Twitter users (I'm not and apparently a lot of chemists aren't either), defintions of topics/subjects suspect, etc., etc. Much more meaningful would be subject relationships using Web of Knowledge or even Google Science. Chemistry is the Central Science and is much more linked to other sicence subjects and fields (no opinion on fashion).
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