When I first read about the Ring of Fire in my geography book at school, the mystic, and almost supernatural aspect of the laws of nature fascinated me. Isolated fire-spitting volcanoes that arranged themselves in an almost spherical congruence ? surely, nothing could match nature. Correction, nothing but man aided by the Internet.

Really, you can be a part of a ring that is much larger than the Ring of Fire, although a little less extraordinary than it because it has been conceived and crafted by man. Made up of isolated elements, the circumference of the Sociology Ring brushes almost every country in every continent, but it cannot be seen because it exists in cyberspace.

Its components ? the users who access it and share information, and discuss and debate sociology topics ? have never met. They have their own identities, come from different backgrounds and have almost nothing in common apart from the eagerness to understand sociology better.

It has millions of users, 80,267 page views on sociology, and 70 active links completely devoted to theories of sociology and their applications with contemporary issues used as examples.

You can access ?Sociology Ring? at http://a.webring.com/hub?ring=sociology. You must register to view all pages but it?s free. And if you want to share your knowledge with others, you can form your own ring and create your own page and post it on the site. The moral of the story: don?t visit the library again!

Saikat Dasgupta

saikatdasgupta@abpmail.com