Do you think that the theory that we are all connected by 6 degrees of seperation is true?

Question

Is there scientific evidence for this or something similar? thanks ppl !:)

Answer 1

True, but not absolutely.

Suppose you know 13 people, and each of those people know 13 different people (that is, each group of 13 people do not know any of the other group, and so on) then with 6 degree you can have 13^6 people, which is 10 billion, a little more than the current population of the Earth.

Surely you know more than 13 people, but at the same time, a lot of the people you know will know one another.

A global generalization would be that one average, there are 6 degrees between any two people on the planet, but there could be exceptions: an isolated aborigine population in Papua New Guinea, with very little contact with the outside, may be more than 6 level from you, especially if you were to also be living in a rather closed community.

For the theory to be 100% true, one would have to show that everyone is indeed at most 6 degree from everybody else; I do not beleive anyone would want to try and measure that, so we have to take it at some sort of face value.

Answer 2

Start with some definitions and make some assumptions.  The rest is statistics.  Technological extroverts and sales people are highly connected.  Primitive tribes have stayed isolated for centuries.