The scientific study of networks, such as computer networks, biological networks, and social networks, is an interdisciplinary field that combines ideas from mathematics, physics, biology, computer science, the social sciences, and many other areas. The field has benefited enormously from the wide range of viewpoints brought to it by practitioners from so many different disciplines, but it has also suffered because human knowledge about networks is dispersed across the scientific community and researchers in one area often do not have ready access to discoveries made in another. The goal of this book is to bring our knowledge of networks together and present it in consistent language and notation, so that it becomes a coherent whole whose elements complement one another and in combination teach us more than any single element can alone.

网络的科学研究，如计算机网络、生物网络和社会网络，是一个跨学科的领域，结合了数学、物理、生物学、计算机科学、社会科学和许多其他领域的思想。该领域从众多不同学科的实践者带来的广泛观点中获益匪浅，但也受到了影响，因为人类对网络的知识分散在科学界，一个领域的研究人员往往无法随时获得另一个领域的发现。这本书的目的是把我们对网络的知识结合在一起，用一致的语言和符号来表达它，这样它就成为一个连贯的整体，其中的元素相互补充，结合起来教给我们的知识比任何单个元素都多。