Capital lecturer compares brain to thesaurus

A LECTURER at Edinburgh University is to give a talk on the comparisons between the workings of the human brain and a thesaurus.

John Old, Edinburgh Napier University lecturer in computing, is set to address the University of Bristol's Centre for Complexity Sciences (BCCS) on the "Patterns of Semantics in Roget's Thesaurus".

He will outline how Roget's Thesaurus classification system operates as a "small world" network.

The "small worlds" idea came out of social network theory and shows that we are all closely connected to each other via friends and acquaintances.

Dr Old will deliver his lecture at the University of Bristol tomorrow.