Network science is an academic field which studies
complex networks such as
telecommunication networks,
computer networks,
biological networks, cognitive and
semantic networks, and
social networks, considering distinct elements or actors represented by
nodes (or
vertices) and the connections between the elements or actors as
links (or
edges). The field draws on theories and methods including
graph theory from mathematics,
statistical mechanics from physics,
data mining and
information visualization from computer science,
inferential modeling from statistics, and
social structure from sociology. The
United States National Research Council defines network science as "the study of network representations of physical, biological, and social phenomena leading to predictive models of these phenomena."