This from Don deYoung in the latest Creation Matters (Vol. 17(4), July/August 2012, p.5) (see www.creationresearch.org):
“Many mathematical truths are surprising and several counter-intuitive examples follow. To begin, every person on earth connects with every other person through a chain of about six mutual contacts (with some exceptions). This means that friends of friends of friends of…, through six levels, will include the entire earth’s population of seven billion. This truth was verified in a limited test using e-mail contacts (Klarreich,2003).”
The conjecture dates back to at least 1929 (with Hungarian
author Frigyes Karinthy), and was the subject of sporadic sociological research
for the rest of the twentieth century, becoming virtually synonymous with the “small
world” phenomenon. It hit popular culture in a big way in the 1990s with
John Guare’s play and the college student spin-off, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
For the email study mentioned, see here. Since 2003, there have
been other studies using the emerging social media platforms - Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter - confirming similar degrees of separation (see the
Wikipedia article for references).
As Don de Young notes,
“The implications are many. On the practical side, through the phenomenon called the “strength of weak ties,” people often find new job opportunities through distant acquaintances rather than closest friends. In evangelism, consider that each person on earth is just six-persons removed from knowing every other person.”
And for truth activists like me and my wife, it gives us
hope that we can indeed reach the whole world, even though from time to time it
seems that no one is listening…
