The joy of Albert-László Barabási's book, Linked: The New Science ofNetworks is that, after reading it, you can't look anywhere withoutseeing networks. The book, which is currently ranked 99th on Amazon's topseller's list, leaves a powerful imprint on the mind's eye.

Did you realize that it takes an average of only one link per node tobind together a random conglomeration of 100 nodes into a seamless network?No wonder gossip travels so fast.

But although most laymen and scientists imagine a "classic network" to be arandom and evenly distributed mesh of linkages among nodes, Barabásiillustrates that many key networks are, in fact, severely uneven. In thesenetworks, called "scale-free," most nodes have only a few links, while a fewnodes have lots.

Obviously, to anyone who looks at their own social network, the scale-freemodel doesn't seem radical. We take for granted that our neighbor Howard isin close touch with 100s of people while most people, like his wife Susie,talk to the same 35 people year in and year out.

What astonishes, however, is that nearly every network we know — whetherit is the network of a cell's molecules, Hollywood, the Internet,Yellowstone's ecosystem, or the "sex map" of patients suffering AIDS — ispopulated almost entirely by Franks and Susies. None of these networksconform to the classically imagined "random" model. All these arefree-scale networks. All rely on a few hyperlinkers to do the bulk of theirwork, whether that work is communicating, making movies, eating rodents, orpassing on disease. Moreover, these uneven networks display distinct andrecurring distributions of high-linkage versus low-linkage nodes.

The scale-free network's linkage distribution has important byproducts. Likethe "classic" random network, scale-free networks are amazingly efficient atdistributing information. Unlike their random cousins, scale-free networksare practically immune to the random failure of individual nodes — nearlyall nodes can be eliminated and the network survives.

Our vision is seared by the ideas in Linked. The badnews is that the book's recurring image of the far flung network reflectsback onthe book itself. Barabási's chapters leave the reader feeling like she'sbeen dragged up and down a tortuous network of ideas, gratuitously whippedfrom one end to the other of a universe of associations. The mind bogglesas Barabási links the hacker Mafiaboy, the Apostle Paul, Gaetan Dugas,patient zero in the AID's epidemic, and Google's Larry Page. Sure, each ofthese individuals have plugged into their respective networks. But theirrelationships to these networks (and to the idea of the scale-free networkin general) are obscured by glare of their differences.

Despite this weakness, Linked is instructive reading. The bookreminds me why major league baseball is nothing if not a network (althoughnot free-scale); each team can not survive without its peers and surely league money must be more evenly distributed or the network willcollapse.

Likewise, I'm reminded that much of the glue that holds together the averagechurch lies in the interaction of the congregation: the dense mesh ofsocial relationships jerks people out of bed and into church eachweek.

And I can see how blogging may help, by replacing the watercooler, toliberatelink-craving minds from dependence on the traditional office-boundednetwork.

Finally, I sense how the atomic family, with just two lone adults nodeslinking to their children, stands little chance against the network mass ofjuvenile influences.

Buy the book. How often do you get a chance to radically alter your visionfor less than $20?