But when Watts used computer simulations to model how new behaviors might spread through social networks, he found that the most highly connected individuals were not the whole story.
BBC Click's Spencer Kelly went to see the Pyrotron - a long aluminium tunnel where wind and fire can be combined to model how real fires might spread.
For example, a number of groups have developed models to project how malaria might spread under particular assumptions about changes in temperature and precipitation (e.g., Martens et al. 1999; Rogers and Randolph 2000; Tanser et al. 2003; Van Lieshout et al. 2004).
The animals are considered the best models of how the infection might spread between people.
Although thorough and well intended, they are based on computer models of how mad cow disease might spread.
The model that's taken root in Somalia might spread to other areas".
The nature of pathogen and parasite transfer and the models used to predict how a disease might spread are magnified in complexity when an arthropod vector is part of the disease cycle.
"So if you have this simple model, then you have a basic understanding of how degradation might spread... which may help you develop some prediction of where it might spread from and how far it might spread".
We model the geographic distribution of AIV to provide insights about how HPAI might spread if it is introduced to the US in the future.
If the ecosystemic model establishes itself as the organisational form of the society, such individual-orientated communities might spread from the internet to the whole of society.
