While a matrix is a mathematical representation of the network, taking the matrix and performing mathematical operations on the matrix can actually unveil patterns or features about the social world that we are trying to understand through the network. While the matrices we’ve worked with so far are simple, recall that in reality networks can be as complicated as the social world they represent. Facebook’s friendship networks, the connections between servers on the World Wide Web, and airline transportation networks have millions of nodes and edges. It’s important to understand some of the fundamentals of how to manipulate a matrix if we were to ever look at networks beyond many of the simple examples in this book.
Left to Right Right Down