Construct · 2 fields · 4 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaningnetworkcompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to node is network.
Hold this as a prompt, not a verdict. Two constructs sitting close in meaning is a reason to read them side by side and decide for yourself whether they are one idea under two names. It is not proof that they are. Compare the meanings in the Collider.
Spokes are fields; dashed arcs are shared lineage. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.
Drag to watch the word get claimed. Each field appears at the publication date of the earliest source cited for it. Tap a year to see which.
In graph theory and network science, a node (also called a vertex) is one of the fundamental objects a graph is built from: an element that may be joined to other elements by edges. Euler founded the study in 1736 when he abstracted the bridges of Konigsberg into points and lines and asked a question about connection alone, and modern network science, surveyed by Newman (2003), treats everything from web pages to neurons to people as nodes in a graph. The referent is a position in a relational structure, and a node is defined entirely by its links: it has no location, size, or substance of its own, and moving it on a diagram changes nothing. Two graphs are the same when their nodes can be matched up preserving the edges, so what a node is depends only on what it connects to. It shares the word with a point in space and a piece of tissue but names a place in a web of relations.[1][2]
In the physics of waves and vibration, a node is a point (or line, or surface) in a standing wave where the medium never moves: the amplitude is permanently zero because two travelling waves cancel there at all times. Chladni (1787) made them visible by bowing metal plates strewn with sand, which fled the vibrating regions and settled along the motionless nodal lines, and every textbook treatment since, such as French (1971), builds standing-wave analysis on the spacing of nodes and the antinodes between them, where the motion is greatest. The referent is a location in space fixed by the wave's geometry, not an object: it has coordinates but no substance, and it is defined by absence, the one place nothing happens. On a guitar string the nodes set the pitch; in a room they mark where a tone falls silent. It shares the word with a graph vertex and an organ but names a still point in a moving field.[3][4]
Next
See how node sits against neighbouring constructs in the Collider, or export every reference on this page in one click.
Open in ColliderExport BibTeXReport this collisionCited on this page?
If your work is cited behind one of these entries, you know better than we do whether we captured the meaning right. Confirm it, suggest an edit, or dispute it, and your name goes on the entry as an author who has checked it, linked to your ORCID.
Claim your construct