Similarity (network science)

Have you ever played with building blocks? Let's say you have two sets of blocks, one set has triangular blocks and the other set has square blocks.

Now, imagine you could connect these blocks to make different shapes. If you connect all of the triangular blocks together, you will get a triangular shape. And if you connect all of the square blocks together, you will get a square shape.

The similarity in network science means that you can look at all of the different shapes that you can make using the blocks, and compare them. If two shapes are very similar, it means they have a lot of the same types of blocks in them.

In network science, instead of building blocks, we use nodes and edges to create networks. Nodes are like the building blocks, and edges are like the connections between them.

We can compare two different networks and see if they are similar by looking at how many nodes they have in common, or how many of the same types of edges they have.

Just like how building blocks can be used to make different shapes, nodes and edges can be used to make different network structures. By looking at the similarities between different networks, we can learn more about how they are related and how they might be used.