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Metcalfe's Law

A theory argued by Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, which states that the power of a network increases by the square of the number of nodes connected to it. For example, where X is the number of nodes, the power of the network is X squared.

Metcalfe observed that new technologies are valuable only when large numbers of people use them -- consider how less valuable the telephone would be if only two people in the world used them. The network becomes more valuable the more nodes that are connected to it.










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