Theoretical research on networks: models and methodology.
Arnold L. Rosenberg · 1997
This note is based on my invited talk at the 4th Intl. Colloq. on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO'97). In it, I discuss a few "meta-issues" concerning theoretical research on networks, and I illustrate these issues with some recent research of mine (so that all critical remarks can be focused in my direction). My central foci are the selection of problems and models, and the tools for studying them. 1 Crucial Concerns for Theoretical Researchers Technology-focused theoretical computer scientists work in a strange laboratory. On the one hand, the tools they work with are supplied by the field of mathematics. On the other hand, the objects that they work on come from a very different constituency, the practitioners in the areas of computer and communication technology. Researchers in this area face a tantalizing temptation to cleave to the elegance-seeking paradigm of mathematics in their work---at the risk of producing results that apply only in a geda...