Near concerns distance.
But distance does not have to mean kilometres.
Two entities can be near in several different senses.
They may be geographically near.
They may be close in time.
They may sit next to one another in a sequence.
They may be only one relational step apart.
Or they may belong to closely related categories.
This means that Near can be both absolute and relative.
Absolute nearness
Absolute nearness is the simplest form.
Coventry and Birmingham are geographically close.
Two events occurring five minutes apart are temporally close.
Two adjacent stations on a railway line are close within the network.
In these cases, distance can often be measured directly.
Relative nearness
Relative nearness depends upon scale.
London and Paris are in different countries, but at the scale of Europe they are close major cities.
They are also connected by a direct rail journey of only a little over two hours.
At a global scale, they are extremely close.
At the scale of central London, Paris is obviously not near at all.
So Near cannot be understood without reference to Zoom.
Changing scale changes what counts as close.
Network nearness
Physical distance is not always the most useful measure.
Two places may be geographically close but poorly connected.
Other places may be farther apart but joined by a fast, direct service.
London and Paris illustrate this well.
The straight-line distance matters, but so does the fact that there is a direct high-speed railway connecting them.
The practical network distance is therefore shorter than geography alone might suggest.
Near can consequently mean:
How far apart are these things?
but also:
How difficult is it to get from one to the other?
Relational nearness
Near can also describe the number of steps separating two entities.
London and Paris are directly linked by rail.
London and a smaller French town might require Paris as an intermediate step.
One link therefore has lower relational distance than the other.
The same applies outside transport.
A person may be directly related to another person, or connected through several intermediaries.
A song may directly sample another recording, while another connection may require a chain involving artist, producer, label and location.
Near therefore asks not only about physical distance but about link distance.