Have you ever experienced the small-world phenomenon? When you discover that your old piano teacher used to work with a woman whose vet once inoculated Sharon Osborne’s dog? Well you are experiencing the claim that anyone on the planet can connect themselves to anyone else in only 'six degrees of separation'. This was the subject of an ingenious experiment in the late 1960’s conducted by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram.
Milgram sent letters to 300 people asking them to send letters to one single target person (a Boston stockbroker). However, there was a catch. They could only send letters to someone they knew personally, hopefully someone who was closer to the target than they were. The recipients of the letters were given the same instructions and so it became a quest to reach the target. Incredibly more than 60 of the letters did actually reach the target, and the average length of the message chains was about six.
So think on, everyone can be connected to everyone else through only six short linkages. What goes around comes around faster than you think!
