Comments on: Proof of six degrees of separation

Researchers from Microsoft analyzed 30 billion Microsoft Instant Messenger conversations, finding that average path length, or degree of separation, among the anonymized users probed was 6.6.

[henebry]

Worth noting that this confirms the "six degrees" thesis in its academic form, rather than in the form popularized by John Guare's play. In the play, everyone in the world is hypothesized to be separated by no more than six degrees of separation. That's a far cry from the claim that the average separation is six degrees. There's undoubtedly a long tail in the bell curve, with a maximum separation far more than six.

[ubbno1]

The other problem in this study is that all those studied had to have a computer, or at least access to one and a Microsoft Messenger account. This only proves the hypothesis in this particular group and has no bearing at all on the huge group of people in the world not linked to the internet, or for that matter, those, like myself, that don't use instant messaging.

[DingoJunior]

Yeah, but who cares about the luddites? :-)

[johnericanderson]

Also note this is a very specific subset of the population that are connected via IM.

This study DOES prove:
People that are connect to each other, are connected to each other.

[blueshore]

It also proves that given at least a common element in a close system, there is a [n] degree of separation.

[ghostofitpast]

I could care less about John Guare. What matters is that all this work grew out of Stanley Milgram's research into the "small-world problem." Given that he reviewed the results of this study in the May, 1967 issue of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, one can hardly call him an obscure source! The absence in the Bibliography of this article, anything from the more scholarly literature, or, for that matter, anything relevant material of substance from the twentieth century strikes me as how pathetically (pathologically?) narrow current research has become. Milgram's work is as valuable for his methodological approach as it is for the results that have seized our attention for over forty years!

[rapier1]

I'm not quite sure where you expect Milgram to be mentioned - in this short article or in the research paper. Regardless, his work is referenced in the references; specifically:
17] J. Travers and S. Milgram. An experimental study of the small world problem. Sociometry, 32(4), 1969.

[yorickjts]

and what about Kevin bacon?

[wpaven]

While its great they were able to do this analysis on such a large dataset, it's really academic. Sociologists have been studying Milgram for qutie some time now and this experiment's been repeated more times that one can count, just maybe with not a dataset so large. This post kind of bugged me as it seems to say that because MS performed the 6 degrees experiment and got the results expected, the research for all has now been legitamized somehow, as it wasn't before for some reason. The truth is, that 6 degrees has been shown again and again to be an upper bound. This article is great PR and spin for them, but I think a first year Sociologist at Stanford could come up with something similar. On another note, now that they've captured that network, it will be interesting to see what R&D they can generate off of all those nodes.

[Laitman]

This research simply shows how we?re externally connected to each other. Soon, however, we will start discovering how internally connected we are, where we will see each other as living not in the bodies we see today, but in each other?s hearts.

Today, we lack the understanding of how the world becomes disclosed to us. For instance, our senses perceive something to the extent that this ?something? is disclosed to them, and beforehand, it is as if this ?something? had never existed. In other words, something we perceive is born in the same moment we discover it. Just take a look at the laws of nature we know about today: until we discovered them, it was as if they had never existed. Obviously, they had always existed, but we simply couldn?t perceive them: they existed in potential, instead of in action, with regard to us.

Baal HaSulam explains that the world is divided into a revealed and a concealed (secret) part. Therefore, the time we will discover the true connection among people (souls), we will know (with Mocha ? mind) and feel (with Liba ? heart), simultaneously, that everyone in the world is solely dependent on everyone else?s goodwill: People?s attitudes of love or hate will determine whether or not they will bring life or death upon others. http://www.laitman.com/2008/03/26/our-planet-is-only-as-big-as-a-house/

[sethbwilliams]

Check out www.glacir.com! We just launched yesterday! The newest social networking site online based on the 6 degrees of separation concept! Go sign up!