I'm a U3 Cognitive Science student, with a focus on computer science and philosophy. My project is an attempt to understand the spread of opinions in online and offline social networks using quantitative (math-based) models. I want to research existing quantitative models for the spread of opinion in social groups, particularly those that could describe patterns seen in modern social media. Physics, biology, epidemiology, applied mathematics, and economics have produced these models, with little dialogue between disciplines. I also want to bring these models into a common framework for comparison and evaluation. Part of this project is to build visualizations for the models so that I can better understand and communicate their consequences. I also want to scrutinize the explicit and hidden assumptions models make to pare reality down to a set of equations. Can any model "fit" the complexity of social interactions in a meaningful way?