Proof There's No Such Thing As A Secret: 'Kevin Bacon' Six Degrees of Connection Theory Confirmed
POP SCIENCE
Proof There's No Such Thing As A Secret: 'Kevin Bacon' Six Degrees of Connection Theory Confirmed
By Crabby Golightly
CRABBY WILL NEVER SNEER AT NAME-DROPPING IN THE SAME WAY EVER AGAIN.
That's because Microsoft scientists have proven that "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" isn't just a trivia game but actually just how close humans are connected.
Enabled by 30 billion electronic conversations between 180 million people worldwide in June of 2006, two Microsoft researchers crunched the numbers and concluded that the connection between any two people on average really is just six degrees of separation or 6.6 degrees to be exact.
"It was pretty shocking,'' Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who performed the experiment, told The Washington Post". "People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore." Horvitz conducted the study with colleague Jure Leskovec.
And Crabby thought she was special that she had rubbed shoulders with those who could count among acquaintances Oprah, Lionel Richie, HBO wonderkind David Simon and TV quack Dr. Phil. Turns out she's just human after all. But adept at namedropping, no?
