Networks: a Realization


Metcalfe's Law states that as you throw a bunch of people together, the overall usefulness rises as the square of the number of people. Brooks's Law states that as you throw a bunch of people together, the overall overhead and chaos rises as the square of the number of people. Only in computer science, I think, could we independently make the same observation -- n choose 2 is quadratic in n -- twice and come to completely opposite conclusions.