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EPL Association, European Physical Society Letters, 4(52), p. 386-391

DOI: 10.1209/epl/i2000-00450-8

American Institute of Physics, AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI: 10.1063/1.1386821

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The fractal properties of internet

Journal article published in 2000 by Guido Caldarelli ORCID, Riccardo Marchetti, Luciano Pietronero
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

In this paper we show that the Internet web, from a user’s perspective, manifests robust scaling properties of the type P(n)∝n−r where n is the size of the basin connected to a given point, P represents the density of probability of finding a basin of size n connected and τ = 1.9±0.1 is a characteristic universal exponent. The connection between users and providers are studied and modeled as branches of a world spanning tree. This scale-free structure is the result of the spontaneous growth of the web, but is not necessarily the optimal one for efficient transport. We introduce an appropriate figure of merit and suggest that a planning of few big links, acting as information highways, may noticeably increase the efficiency of the net without affecting its robustness.