“Six degrees of separation” is a philosophical term which means that any two human beings in this world are connected through at the most six acquaintances. It is thought to be a lot related to the term “Small World” now. Several studies relevant to the Small World Experiment have shown that any two individuals could be connected through 5 or at most 6 personal acquaintances. This proves that even when the size of the world is increasing and population explosion is taking place, because of the technological advances people can connect to each other remotely and thus there is a more connectedness in the world. Now or then, whenever you hear a person saying that the World is getting smaller or the World is so small, you know what he/she means. Wow, doesn’t this sound great? Now, I can say that President Bush is my relative’s, relative’s, relative’s, relative’s, relative’s relative. Such a close relation, I never knew it. Same I can say for any great celebrities or icons. Oh! Now I am connected to anybody in Hollywood and Bollywood, so as everybody. The only bad part is, it may happen that CIA comes and arrest you on behalf of being connected to Osama Bin Laden. So be careful! But this is something very good and interested people can search about it on Wikipedia.
This theory is astonishing and has inspired many researchers to actually test it. Professor Duncan Watts of Columbia University tested this theory in the network theory by trying to send a packet from one person to another on the internet. He was stunned by looking at the fact that on an average only 5 intermediaries are required between any two people. The term became popular when people started creating games and plays related to this concept. Even a movie has been made with the title “Six degrees of separation”.
