Barabási–Albert Preferential Attachment Simulator

dt (ms between new nodes):

Attractive: 0.020

Repulsive: 0.20

Force-directed layout: connected nodes attract, unconnected ones weakly repel. New nodes are placed close to the node they attach to.

Degree distribution

x: degree, y: number of nodes with that degree

Points

Initial adjacency (edit top-right only)

Nodes: 8

Edges: 0

Click checkboxes in the top-right area to edit. Boxes in lower-left are mirrored (read-only) to keep symmetry.

Notes & Controls

The preferential attachment probabilities are computed from node degrees. Implementation also constructs the array requested: each node gets entry (1/N_k) * k_i where N_k = number of non-zero entries in adjacency (sums to 1).

Learn how the simulation works

A huge thank you to Jesse Taylor for making the demonstrations possible and sharing his experience with us! And a big thanks to Dr. Katharine Tibbets, Dr. Julien Glorian & Sabrina DePiero for their expertise and participation in this video. Also thanks to Steven Johnson, author of The Infernal Machine (as featured on 99% Invisible) and to Jonah Sachs and professor Terry Reynolds for their help on the project.