The beauty of crystals mirrored in collaboration networks of science

Abstract

Most complex systems are often random and unpredictable. But the emergence of spatial order and special symmetry in the regular shapes of crystals is a constant source of fascination for people of all over the world. In comparison, the emerging “Social Gestalts” offer the evidence that large collaboration networks are self-organizing given the high degree of spatial order and special symmetry in the regular shapes of the manifold 3-D graph images of the “Social Gestalts”. The “Social Gestalt” model is a new parametric model visualizing 3-D graphs on the level of large networks, using animation to show these graphs from different points of view. The emerging spatial (3-D) order and special symmetry in the regular shapes of both crystals and “Social Gestalts” offer a new question for interdisciplinary studies in future.