science

MAE-West

MAE-West is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand MAE-West rather than just read about it. In short: MAE-West was an Internet exchange point located on the west coast of the United States in Silicon Valley, in the south San Francisco Bay Area in California. It was established in November, 1994.

Key takeaways

MAE-West belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect MAE-West to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of MAE-West from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

MAE-West was an Internet exchange point located on the west coast of the United States in Silicon Valley, in the south San Francisco Bay Area in California. It was established in November, 1994. Its name officially stands for "Metropolitan Area Exchange, West", although it was a humorous reference to the name of the actress Mae West and to the original MAE in the Washington, D.C. metro area, which was thereafter known as "MAE-East." The exchange was a dual Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) ring, bridged between two locations, one in downtown San Jose, operated by Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS) and catering principally to smaller networks, and the second operated by NASA at Moffett Field, 12 miles (19 km) to the northwest, and catering principally to larger networks, since it had annual terms (rather than the monthly terms and service level agreement available at the MFS location) and more restrictive access policies. The MFS side was constructed by Steven Feldman, and the NASA side by Bobby Cates and Lance Tatman. Its San Jose facility was housed in the Market Post Tower. Built in 1985, Market Post Tower, also known as the Gold Building, is a 15-story building located at 55 South Market at the corner Post Street in downtown San Jose, California. According to its website, "MAE West is interconnected with the Ames Internet Exchange, operated by NASA at the Ames Research Center. This connection is currently two OC3c circuits directly between the FDDI switches at each end." In the 1990s, MAE-West was operated by MCI Worldcom and was the second-busiest exchange point on the internet, handling, by some estimates, as much as 40% of the nation's Internet traffic.

See also MAE-East Internet Exchange Point (IXP) Federal Internet Exchange (FIX) Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX)

References

External links Who's MAE, and why is she so slow?

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with MAE-West

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what MAE-West claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to MAE-West before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about MAE-West ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of MAE-West

In research: MAE-West appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses MAE-West in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: MAE-West is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics History of the Internet, Internet exchange points in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for MAE-West outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study MAE-West in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what MAE-West means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain MAE-West out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is MAE-West in simple terms?

MAE-West was an Internet exchange point located on the west coast of the United States in Silicon Valley, in the south San Francisco Bay Area in California. It was established in November, 1994.

Why does MAE-West matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study MAE-West?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on MAE-West.