Look at a map and you can tell right away where New York ends and New Jersey begins. But that official border is not a [--1--] of how the community is really shaped. Because northeastern Jersey is effectively part of the New York City [--2--] and southwest Jersey is really part of Philadelphia’s.
Researchers from Northwestern University have now [--3--] the country’s de facto communities. And they did it in an ingenious way, using data from the Where’s George project.
Maybe you’ve gotten a dollar bill, featuring George Washington’s mug, that’s been [--4--] to indicate it’s in the Where’s George system. You can then go to a and enter the serial number of the bill and your location. As will, hopefully, the next person who gets that bill.
The researchers realized that the movement of the dollars tracked by Where’s George is a marker for the movement of people. And the mobility of people reveals true communities.
The research, in Public Library of Science ONE [Christian Thiemann et al., "The Structure of Borders in a Small World"], shows that, for example, the New England states really are a [--5--]. As is what you might call greater Texas after you’ve seen the video produced by the researchers. It’s at
【視聽版科學(xué)小組榮譽(yù)出品】
true reflection metropolitan area mapped stamped block
瞧著地圖你可以準(zhǔn)確的分辨出紐約的盡頭和新澤西的開端在哪兒。但是官方的邊界并不能真正反映出這個(gè)地區(qū)的真正邊界。因?yàn)樾聺晌鞯臇|北部實(shí)際上是紐約大都會(huì)的一部分，而新澤西的西南部確是費(fèi)城的一部分。 來自西北大學(xué)的研究人員已經(jīng)繪制出了這個(gè)國(guó)家的實(shí)際邊界。他們用了一個(gè)很巧妙的辦法—使用“Where’s George”[注1: Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money.]項(xiàng)目中的數(shù)據(jù)來解決這個(gè)問題。 也許你得到過一美元鈔票，而且加蓋了印花標(biāo)明它在Where’s George系統(tǒng)中，上面還印著喬治?華盛頓的苦瓜臉。然后進(jìn)入網(wǎng)站，輸入鈔票上的序列號(hào)和你的方位。可能的話，下一個(gè)得到鈔票的人說不定也會(huì)這樣做。 研究人員意識(shí)到Where’s George發(fā)起的追蹤美元活動(dòng)可以標(biāo)記人員流動(dòng)。人員的流動(dòng)能反映真正的群體界定。在一號(hào)公共科學(xué)圖書館的研究顯示，新英格蘭地界就是一個(gè)空心塊?？赡苣阏J(rèn)為的更大的德州呢，當(dāng)你看完研究人員錄制的視頻后會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)跟新英格蘭一樣是個(gè)空心塊。登陸可以查到。