Science marches onward

August 11, 2004 7:53 PM

Marvel Universe looks almost like a real social network:"We investigate the structure of the Marvel Universe collaboration network, where two Marvel characters are considered linked if they jointly appear in the same Marvel comic book. We show that this network is clearly not a random network, and that it has most, but not all, characteristics of 'real-life' collaboration networks, such as movie actors or scientific collaboration networks. The study of this artificial universe that tries to look like a real one, helps to understand that there are underlying principles that make real-life networks have definite characteristics." [Some jargon, but on the whole very readable]
posted by Johnny Assay (10 comments total)

(This is somewhat old, so apologies if it's made the rounds already.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:54 PM on August 11, 2004

There is a social conspiracy that the writer will never get laid.
posted by Keyser Soze at 8:59 PM on August 11, 2004

Academia has the power to make even the Marvel Universe boring :(
posted by dhoyt at 9:01 PM on August 11, 2004

How strange to see the subject of the Marvel Universe being discussed/analyzed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I understand (somewhat) that there is some science here that may be applicable to real-world stuff, but it's just kind of jarring to think of Spiderman and top-secret nuclear labs.

Wait a minute. Maybe it makes *perfect* sense. Hulk - gamma rays. Fantastic Four - nuclear radiation. Spidey - ditto.

Folks, Los Alamos is in the process of creating superheroes. We've cracked the code.
posted by davidmsc at 10:25 PM on August 11, 2004

And as the U.S. continues to lose its edge in science...
posted by inksyndicate at 10:55 PM on August 11, 2004

Following davidmsc, why is it that everyone in the Marvel Universe is the unwitting product of science gone awry? Even Daredevil would be just another NYC punk if that canister of toxic waste hadn't blinded him -- and given him radar!!! You've got the Hulk, the F4 (who were altered by cosmic radiation, not nuclear), Spidey, the X-Men...it's a constant theme throughout all of Stan Lee's stuff.
posted by solistrato at 11:08 PM on August 11, 2004

The paper is not from LANL. It is a preprint submitted to arXiv, which xxx.lanl.gov mirrors. arXiv.org is a site to submit preprints (drafts of papers prior to their being peer-reviewed, accepted, and published) of papers in physics, computer science, mathematics, and quantitative biology.

This paper is from some researchers in Spain, and seems to be a pretty pointless work following on the heels of the Barabasi network theory mania from a few years back. To my knowledge, it has not been published.

The paper only briefly touches on the only potentially interesting result: how does the artificially constructed network differ from observed natural networks? Potentially interesting insights can be derived from studying how our impression of the world differs from its true form.
posted by justin at 12:11 AM on August 12, 2004

it's a constant theme throughout all of Stan Lee's stuff.

But he's also got aliens, gods, chemically altered humans, occultists, robots, men in robot suits, and more! Anything he can think of I imagine.

Please take my name off this thread.
posted by biffa at 2:17 AM on August 12, 2004

biffa

Done and done.
posted by yerfatma at 3:23 AM on August 12, 2004

It's a constant theme throughout all of Stan Lee's stuff.

But he's also got aliens, gods, chemically altered humans, occultists, robots, men in robot suits, and more! Anything he can think of I imagine.

That would be Jack Kirby, AKA, the man who was screwed out of his creative rights at Marvel. Stan lee did the dialog, Kirby did the plots and pencils.

A great book about him and his 50 year career in the comics is Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution by Ronin Ro
posted by jpburns at 4:48 AM on August 12, 2004