Degrees of Separation

Its difficult to make the links until they happen...how many of us could enumerate everyone we know?

Years ago, one Monday I met the usual colleagues for our lunchtime bridge game... one of the guys said..
'I met your Sister at the weekend' ...! She lives a long way from me.

It turned out he'd met her on an Italian mountain top! The English climbers had sort of congregated at the top... he'd asked for a light for a cigarette or some such..they'd got chatting and the link became apparent when he mentioned living in Harlow...

It's is a small world... but they could so easilly not have realised the connection

DAG, Dude!!! I know you dude!!! You live in Texas right?!

Of course you do! All of us Texans are brothers! Vernon TX is my current residence. I grew up near Dallas.

That's funny - I grew up near Dallas, too. (Mesquite/Garland)

Clearly there is something to this. I recently found that I am only four degrees away from Einstein and of course then only five degrees from every physicist he knew. Three degrees away from the current sitting king of another country. Kind of amazing. Also living in a small town I saw a picture of a younger woman on her grandfather's desk 10 years before I just randomly met and started dating her only to find out that she had been seeing the son of a previous older woman I had been dating. Needless to say that was a touchy situation.

I'm not sure what is your point. I mean clearly by definition you don't know the person after the first degree of separation or there would be only one degree of separation. But for sure, even considering only who we know directly what that means is a varied as the number of pairs of people who know each other and as such defies specificity in description, all we can really do is describe certain categories or degrees of knowing.

Strange things do happen. I was in a play at a college and there were pictures of the actors in the lobby. Six months after the play a woman I knew called to tell me she found a picture of me in a book she pulled off the shelf in a local library. It was a picture from the play. Incalculable odds to be sure but I suppose sometimes it it inevitable that someone finds the needle in the haystack. Actually Myth Busters took on that one once.

I guess if one were to study the degrees of separation, he would have to define what relationship he were looking for the degrees within (did that make any sense?...). Otherwise all of us CR4 members would have only one degree of separation due to the fact that we have an adversarial sarcastic intellectual relationship with one another (please detect the dry humor in this statement) within the realm of CR4.

Could this have an implication such as the uncertainty principle? The mere investigation of connections creates connections thereby messing up the measurement of connections?

DAG. If your mother was never in China she could know my mother. She was never in China either.

I was once driving in the out back. A vast area. Hot and unforgiving. We noticed a person walking with rucksack and all. It was Toschi from Germany. I had not seen him in 17 years and he had no idea I was in Australia. He was always a lucky man. He was a legend when it came to hitching a ride and very lucky to be picked up by me and my wife. He would have other wise been in real trouble because 5 cars a day is the average rush hour out there. The road trains stop for nothing and nobody so they don't count as rescue tools. Right time right place I suppose. Ky.

I always thought it was "the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon"!

Any actor can be connected to a movie Kevin was in, in only seven steps.

From what I understand, this a spin off of the original theory...I thought Kevin Bacon was in every movie?

I read a pretty good article about this topic in the most recent Discover Magazine. The title was something like, "If We're All Separated by Six Degrees, Then Why Can't We Find Osama Bin Laden?" I think the answer to that question is pretty simple; so please ignore it. But the article gives a good background into the original study that produced the "Six Degrees of Separation" idea, including a critique of the methods and assumptions involved. Basically, the researcher gave out letters to his participants, and the name and location of a target participant. The object was to deliver the letter by passing it through intermediary contacts.

It turns out that that a miserable percentage of the letters reached their target, and six degrees was more like an average number than a maximum. People just really liked the six degrees idea; it fits with the "small world" coincidences we all experience. It wasn't until a year or so ago that mathematicians were better able to quantiify these connections along the lines of social dimensions.

So that's why some of us probably do know each other outside this forum, or have a small number of connections between us. We probably have a few social dimensions in common. Most of us have technical interests and/or careers, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if I was six degrees from any of you. Maybe through a colleague or a college professor. But I'd rather not know. My world already seems uncomfortably small.

Interesting concept. Never thought about it.

A number of years back, my wife and I met and became friends with a young woman that we invited to our home. She lived in a part of our city of 1/2 million residents far removed from us. When she came into our house, her attention was immediately drawn to a reproduced painting on our wall. She said her great grandfather had painted that picture. As I knew that the artist was my great grandfather, I started investigating and found that indeed she was a relative.

They also made a movie title: Six Degree Of Seperation, and also a game to link any Hollywood people to Kevin Beacon in 10 degree or less. This thread just reminded me of that.

MidniteFighter

wondered if some of the members of the forum are people I know

Well, I found one member who used to work in the factory just across the street from mine! We don't know each other and met only in CR4. Does that count?

Of course, we both live in the same country so I guess it's easier. And besides, we only found out after we exchanged information.

It's possible that some of us know another member but is not aware of it. The only way to know is to give some information about each other.

Shall we?

Shall we?

Show me yours and I'll show you mine kind of a thing? PMSL.

I'm shy!!!!

I have heard of this before and now, due to this post, have read more on it.

I find it hard to believe that without any geographic restraints this can be true. It is all well enough to do this test on one, albeit large, location such as the Midwest of the United States, but what about those people that come genetically from proven different pockets of first evolved humans such as the Mongols and Chinese. Do we really link to these people by only 6 others?

Surely there must be something else in that equation to limit the targets distance in some biological way.

Although it is very interesting and part of it I can accept, I don't subscribe to all of it as I think it is impossible. Maybe there is more on this and I can be convinced otherwise by one of you lot.

I see where you are coming from now, that is clearer.

Although with regards to my situation I think this theory will have a hard time sorting itself out.

I am Dutch, none of my family lives here.

I am married to a Chinese and her parents don't speak English and cannot even remember their birth dates.

What information would you then use to "find" people that somehow link to me? Any "real" detail will disclose where and who you are immediately.

What a relief! that was one of the points I suddenly got worried about, being on six or less degrees separated from yourself.

Now my mind is fully rested on this point. Sigh!

"I am Dutch, none of my family lives here.

I am married to a Chinese and her parents don't speak English and cannot even remember their birth dates."

Actually, just from what you say here can be a use. For example: I am Chinese and marry an American, and her parents are German/Dutch. So I may or may not know your wife's parents (maybe through my parents.) Or my wife's parent may have know your parents. In this case, I'm separated from you in Five degrees. So the point is you'll never know. Six degree seem like a small number, but then again, our world is small sometime.

MidniteFighter

Try it?

I don't think you will find me through that info and that is while I am assuming you are Chinese and married an American who's parents are Dutch / German.

I can even give you more info and it would not help In my mind, I was born in 1965 will be of no use until you find somebody close enough. I have a brother who is 6 years younger may be of more help as this includes another person.

I still have my doubt.

Just to further illustrate.

Each of us have a circle of people we know (friends, relatives, acquaintances). Each of those friends/relatives/aquaintances have their own circle.

If we connect each person to the next, we will eventually connect to everyone on the planet, or so the theory goes.

If you want to experiment, you can give your name, some information that will help identify you, and an approximate location (maybe a town or a city block). The rule is, that the message has to be transferred to someone you know.

This illustration is not six degrees (12 actually) but just serves to give you an idea of how the theory can be tested. The dark lines show the paths that can connect one person to another person on the planet.

Dear Vulcan,

I understand the principle and I am not denying it's workings on the whole, I am just saying that even with al the information you can find about me in this thread, it is not enough to "find" me.

I believe that the "average" you mentioned is probably spread over the largest amount of links mathematically possible to derive to 6 degrees, after some "weeding" of undesireable findings. As with any of these theories, they heavily depend on the conduct of the experiment and how any environment was created by setting pre-described rules to comply with. I still am not convinced that if this gets repeated correctly it results in the same finding for any person on this globe.

I think the impetus is on the "If you could find" part. Since it is not something you can really model in one dimension, the idea of finding any particular route between two people implies daunting numbers. Yet in many instances a route may exist, finding it just isn't feasible or practical unless it could be set up as an automated web facility and we were to all program into our personal nodes every person we knew. Even that task alone is not insignificant in terms of gathering details and entering data. But then a web based algorithm could map out every connection and we could enter a pair of people and it could spit out all the connections up to some degree. Possible yes, practical? Maybe not. More just an interesting thought experiment in social/spacial connectivities.

...practical? Maybe not. More just an interesting thought experiment in social/spacial connectivities.

Exactly! Some people find it interesting that you can be connected to every other person on the planet by just six degrees of separation. Unfortunately, the fact that this is just an average was somehow lost in telling.

Is there any use for it?

I've heard another theory that everything we do will eventually affect every person on the planet to some extent. If we were somehow to go back in time, say just one minute, and do something differently, everyone's life will take another track from the previous one (hope that made sense). I think I saw that in the Twilight Zone once.

Well if you want to take it to an extreme, considering quantum non-locality we are all linked from the big bang and every move we make affects every other atom in the universe. But again, it is a situation that is probably so far beyond assessing or manifesting in any observable way that it has absolutely no utility. There is an interesting book that attempts to derive the significance of non-locality in human terms "The Non-local Universe". It's and interesting read.[/p]

What was that program where they were going back in time and every once in a while someone would alter something that then rippled forward in time and most of the time the effect was like an earth tremor. So maybe we would all just end up a millimeter off in another direction. Which in an extreme case could be life or death.[/p]

Fun to think about but that's about a far as it goes I think.

Just as an experiment, I try google your username Case491 and I got a couple results: 1) you are a member of CR4 (off course), and 2) the name Case491 is also on eBay with an interest in music and live in UK.

The person on ebay may or may not be you, but if it is you, some of the CR4 member may be seperated from you through some of the seller on ebay. How's that for small world??

MidniteFighter

That e-bay is me and you can see the connection through the things I buy and sell. Mostly Neil Young and Harley stuff.

This is however not the way the theory works. It says that you need to use a contact from your circle of friends or an acquaintance who will ask around their circle of friends and so forth.

It does not specify if you can "pre-select" from your circle of friends or even from your friend's circle but this is effectively how you should be able to find me within 5 such contacts. THis is where I believe the thing will fall flat on it's face. You ask the "wrong" friend and you have effectively increased the line-up by 2 more contacts as they will have to find their way back to the line that is supposed to find me.

You know to much about me already, I will have to seek you out and kill you! If only I knew how?

You wrote (misspelled!) the following:-

1) you are a member of CR4 (off course)

I believe you meant to write:-

1) you are a member of CR4 (of course)

But really your original "misspelled" version is probably more accurate than you (or I) may think!! He's often "off course and heading in the wrong direction!!"

What does Case491 say?

I think our "collective scepticism" about any scientific claim is a bit shorter than usual on this matter. We have shown more concrete claims the door in the past but for some reason this claim of separation seems to speak to people. I have to admit that it is a neat claim and that it does make the mind wonder as it would be rather "smart" if it were true.

The whole thing is skewed however, as the people in this forum already have consulted other means to complete the link, namely the internet (e-bay and google).

This is NOT the way the claim stated how it worked. It says to link to any "partially" known person via a chain of linked people but you do not necessarily know any of the linked people except for the first contact, which is somebody in your circle of friends or acquaintances. The internet would , if done properly, eliminate any need for this theory as we could find somebody direct with its vast databases of info and connections.

I still maintain that geography will pose a limit to this theory and as such it has not been fully tested, let alone repeated. I would LOVE to see concrete evidence of its working though, as it is interesting. Nothing needs to be true to be interesting, the Piltdown man was not true but very interesting for hundreds of years.

Humour me

I have rated you post as a good answer, it made more sense (in a relatively short post) than all the previous ones did! Finally I really and fully understand what is meant by the six degrees of separation....

Many thanks for the clarity of word.

Actually it would work better if we were all connected like the internet routers. We could compile lists of every direct connection we have and broadcast to those know to us a "Who knows John Doe?" then they could do the same to everyone they know and it theory a six or less hop connection would emerge.

So, make as many copies of this email as you have people you know and send it to all of them who each have to make as many copies as people they know... Remember, if you break this chain it will bring bad luck and your cable modem will have to be reset. When it comes back to you then you will receive great riches. (Did I mention, wrap one American Dollar or Euro in your TCP/IP packet?)

You would probably even find that there are numerous instances of six degrees of separation between you and yourself through people you don't know. I think that's illegal in my town.

If any of you are interested in subjects like this I've just finished reading a book called quirkology. 6 degrees of seperation is discussed in it and lots more interesting stuff. There is a web site too so check it out at www.quirkology.com