HOT NETWORKS (2019)

The effect of heat on networks 

The physicality of a network often forces its links to deviate from a straight line as they struggle to find a path to their destination. The need to quantify these deviations inspired the BarabásiLab’s development of the “network temperature” concept. 

Just as air temperature captures the randomness of the air’s molecular trajectories in the gas, the temperature of a network describes the degree to which individual links wander in space. A zero-temperature network has only straight links. The links of a “hot network,” by contrast, swerve and curve as they reach their destination. The 2D image shows a “hot lattice,” the temperature of which increases toward the center of the plane, and the temperature of three-dimensional cubic lattices shown in red to the left, is elevated at the center of the network. The 3D data sculpture illustrates what happens to a networks when the temperature of all its links is increased. While all of these hot networks were intended to exist as data sculptures, many could not yet be printed with the spatial resolution offered by existing 3D-printing technology.