Six Degrees of Seperation

I’ve always been interested in this concept, at least ever since I’ve heard of the movie.

Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries. The theory was first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called "Chains."

Of course when I joined Orkut the coolest thing for me was that I could see how people were connected to me as distant as three to four connections away.. nowadays I think we can just see the link between friends of friends ….

I can imagine being connected to everyone in Mangalore by six degrees .. India even I guess ,but everyone in the world?

"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find that extremely comforting, that we're so close, but I also find it like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It's not just big names -- it's anyone. A native in a rain forest, a Tiero del Fuegan, an Eskimo. I am bound -- you are bound -- to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It's a profound thought -- how Paul found us, how to find the man whose son he claims to be, or perhaps is, although I doubt it. How everyone is a new door, opening into other worlds."

-Character Ouisa Kittredge from the movie Six Degrees of Separation

It’s the interconnectedness aspect of The small world phenomenon that appeals to me , the fact that you are only a few people away from anyone else on the planet!! The theory has its uses as well, it seems scientists can use this sociological experiment to track the spread of infectious diseases…( if I remember right from the movie 'And The Band Played on' ( I love HBO and HBO movies, this one's good!!), Patient Zero, vilified controversially as the mass spreader of AIDS in New York, was an Air steward who singly infected people in his network, and onwards to the rest of America, and then to the rest of the world ??!!!!, )

I guess at a subconscious level we should all know that we are connected … how quick we are to claim only six degrees of separation from George Bush , but imagine that we are several times removed from the peace loving Indian mullah in Ahmedabad..( I seriously don’t believe this is happening , it's so totally wrong ,and to the folks that propogate this ,(the few and far between that you are) Stop the HATE !!!