What Is a Hub?
A hub is the piece of hardware in the middle of a wheel but it has become a symbol for many other kinds of systems. Airports and train stations serve as transportation hubs. Computer cables plug into hubs so that computers can interface with each other as well as with other types of hardware accessories. The idea of a hub has even found its way into the work of brain science researchers, educators, psychologists and other people as a helpful cognitive metaphor.
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Identification
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A hub is the center of a wheel. Think of a bicycle wheel. It has a round hub at the center into which the spokes each fit. They extend out from the hub to the rim which is covered with the tire itself.
Function
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The concrete hub of a wheel became a metaphor for designing transportation systems. Railroad hubs are large central stations where trains from many different smaller local stations meet. Passengers often change trains at these larger hubs. Chicago, New York, and Atlanta are passenger rail hubs used by Amtrak, for example. Express routes generally go from hub to hub while local routes stop at the smaller stations.
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Features
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Airports also serve as hubs in the same way. Large international airports are hubs where passengers arrive on many different airlines. They can transfer between smaller air carriers traveling shorter routes to less important locations and larger airlines that go to major destinations. New York City's JFK airport, London's Heathrow airport, and Los Angeles' LAX are all major airport hubs.
Significance
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The idea of a hub has been adopted by the computer industry as well. Here it refers to computer hardware ports where network cables connect. Both ethernet cables that allow a computer to access the internet and USB cables that connect pieces of hardware to a computer plug into a hub. Some hubs are passive in that they just allow connections to occur like an electric extension cord. Other hubs amplify or enhance the connection. These are repeater hubs. Still other hubs add capabilities. These are intelligent hubs.
Expert Insight
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The concept of a hub is becoming even more widely used to organize information and present possibilities. Alvaro Fernandez, the CEO of SharpBrains, speaks of schools as "brain training hubs" where students are exposed to all of the different types of learning and information. A hub, the school, is the central point. Students arrive there and leave to travel as far as they can from the center to explore a certain path of knowledge, thinking or investigation. Then they return to the center to try a different path. Eventually, they become well-rounded mature participants in the give and take of a culture's evolution, all the spokes having been connected to the central hub.
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