Macro Connections
Transforming data into knowledge.
The way we act, both individually and collectively, depends strongly on the way we see the world. The Macro Connections group focuses on the development of analytical tools that can help improve our understanding of the world's macro structures in all of their complexity. By developing methods to analyze and represent networks—such as the networks connecting countries to the products they export, or historical characters to their peers—Macro Connections research aims to help improve our understanding of the world by putting together the pieces that our scientific disciplines have helped to pull apart.
Research Projects
Collective MemoryCesar A. Hidalgo, C. Jara-Figueroa, and Amy Yu
Collective memory is formed from the information that our species imbues in both humans and objects. We encode this information as order within physical systems such as media technologies, which allows us to transmit and preserve collective memory to our posterity. We use the biographies of 11,341 memorable people that comprise the Pantheon dataset to study how changes in the systems used to store information affect the quantity and composition of our species' collective memory. We find that changes in media technology such as the printing press, the industrial revolution, the telegraph, and television mark milestones within the evolution of the composition of our collective memory; composition that is directly affected by the predominant communication technology of the time. We also find that these milestones mark changes in the quantity of information from each period that makes up our collective memory.
Transforming data into knowledge.
The way we act, both individually and collectively, depends strongly on the way we see the world. The Macro Connections group focuses on the development of analytical tools that can help improve our understanding of the world's macro structures in all of their complexity. By developing methods to analyze and represent networks—such as the networks connecting countries to the products they export, or historical characters to their peers—Macro Connections research aims to help improve our understanding of the world by putting together the pieces that our scientific disciplines have helped to pull apart.
Research Projects
Collective MemoryCesar A. Hidalgo, C. Jara-Figueroa, and Amy Yu
Collective memory is formed from the information that our species imbues in both humans and objects. We encode this information as order within physical systems such as media technologies, which allows us to transmit and preserve collective memory to our posterity. We use the biographies of 11,341 memorable people that comprise the Pantheon dataset to study how changes in the systems used to store information affect the quantity and composition of our species' collective memory. We find that changes in media technology such as the printing press, the industrial revolution, the telegraph, and television mark milestones within the evolution of the composition of our collective memory; composition that is directly affected by the predominant communication technology of the time. We also find that these milestones mark changes in the quantity of information from each period that makes up our collective memory.