"Who is the Most Important Character in Frozen? What Networks Can Tell Us about the World"

Petter Holme, Hiroki Sayama, and I decided to take on the challenge of writing a mathematics paper for Frontiers for Young Minds, a scientific journal for young readers. Only a handful of mathematics papers have been published among their many hundreds of articles. We decided to give an introduction to networks through the movie Frozen and calculation of centralities. Our paper came out today, and here are some details. You can take a look at our paper either at their website or in .pdf form.

Title: Who is the Most Important Character in Frozen? What Networks Can Tell Us about the World

Authors: Petter Holme, Mason A. Porter, and Hiroki Sayama

Abstract: How do we determine the important characters in a movie like Frozen? We can watch it, of course, but there are also other ways—using mathematics and computers—to see who is important in the social network of a story. The idea is to compute numbers called centralities, which are ways of measuring who is important in social networks. In this paper, we talk about how different types of centralities measure importance in different ways. We also discuss how people use centralities to study many kinds of networks, not just social ones. Scientists are now developing centrality measures that also consider changes over time and different types of relationships.

An Old Disney Creation/Merchandising Network

Wow!

LINKING LINES ASPIRE TO BE SENTENCES = graphic links in Disney network with creative talent at center: https://t.co/2pGfS5DdQ4 #dataviz #ddj pic.twitter.com/NpxFCTePN6

— Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) December 1, 2016

History-Book Chapter Title Proposal: "Mr. Trump's Wild Ride"

Inspired by Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I want to advocate "Mr. Trump's Wild Ride" as the chapter title for history books when they discuss our current adventure (assuming there is somebody left around to write history books).

Please place the royalties next to my grave.

Among my lessons this week is that 24 hours is about how long it takes for my snark to get back up to full blast after very bad news. (It came back in fits and bursts well well before then, and my sense of humor is pretty dark anyway.) Actually, I think I knew this before, but I was reminded of it.

Update: And if you don't know The Wind in the Willows, then I strongly suggest you look up the character Mr. Toad. In certain respects, the resemblance is uncanny. ;)

Pixar: Another Big Win

On extremely rare occasions, I see a movie (or read a book or play a game...) that shows me a new perspective on things and fuels my imagination (and my Abstract Thought). Pixar's Inside Out is one of those movies. Wow, just wow.

I had heard excellent things about Inside Out and was really looking forward to it after watching a trailer after seeing a colleague gush about the movie on Facebook, and I have to say that I am amazed. I wouldn't say that movies amaze me very often, but this one did. I'll have to think about whether it has surpassed The Incredibles as my favorite Pixar movie of all time --- I haven't decided yet, but it's possible --- and "best Pixar film ever" is very high praise indeed. (The short film before the main feature could have been much better, however.)

Anyway, if you haven't seen Inside Out yet, I suggest that you go see it. Perhaps even stop what you're doing and go see it? It's that good.

And now, as usual, it's time for me to spend some more time in Abstract Thought and Imagination Land (two of my favorite places). :)