well in the gay community its 3 degrees of separation

Yes. Read this story from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7539329.stm " The theory of six degrees of separation has long captured people's imagination - notably inspiring a popular 1993 film - but had recently seemed discredited...The idea of six degrees of separation was conceived by US academic Stanley Milgram, after experiments in which he asked people to pass a letter only to others they knew by name. The aim was to get it, eventually, to a named person they did not know living in another city. The average number of times it was passed on, he said, was six - hence, the six degrees of separation. However, in July 2006, Judith Kleinfeld, professor of psychology at Alaska Fairbanks University, went back to Milgram's original research notes and discovered that 95% of the letters sent out had failed to reach their target. She suggested that the six degrees theory might be the academic equivalent of an urban myth... Microsoft researchers studied the addresses of 30bn instant messages sent during a single month in 2006. Any two people on average are linked by seven or fewer acquaintances, they say...Examining the minimum chain lengths it would take to connect all the users in the database, they found the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78% of the pairs could be connected in seven links or fewer...The Microsoft researchers said that, to their knowledge, their study had for the first time validated Milgram's theory on a planetary scale. " - - - - - So the answer is yes, then no, then yes again !

It would be fun to figure out how to try it out here on AB.

I think it's a matter of interpretation. Statistics can be manipulated. I think this should only apply to "First world" people not all 6 Billion plus people on Earth.

Nah, there's some rainforest jungle doods that are completely isolated. They're my trump card against Bacon

The trouble is it is very hard to get people to participate in any kind of test to show whether or not people are linked socially because many people will just ignore things of this nature. It would be pretty hard to link me to someone who lives in a tribe that has never contacted the civilized world since they are not really in our social network.

ok....so exactly does it mean for ppl? i mean i understand the passing on but what do the findings say? that ppl arent...uh...idk keen on strangers? SOMEBODY PLZ EXPLAIN!!!

theres nothing substantial to prove it but by intelligent guess its not possible to prove this claim u need an orkut account or for that matter account on any social networking which shows links between u and any user (on orkut if go to any users page it will show the degree of relationship between u and him/her) orkut does not show degree more than 3 now a days but it used to show degree more than 5 before which proves Mr Milgram wrong but it could be wrong considering not everyone holds an orkut account i guess orkut or facebook or any other social networking site can take an initiative and prove this

No, but it sounds good.

I do not know about 6 degrees of separation but the idea that most of us are closer linked than we think is probably true. There's a good book for spotting the connection. It's "The Lunar Men" by Jenny Uglow, about the amateur science club in Birmingham, England in the late 1700s. One of the members taught mathematics to Thomas Jefferson, several of them knew Ben Franklin, and some had met King George III. Some of them knew Joseph Banks who shipped with James Cook. Cook discovered and mapped the east coast of Australia and all of the coast of New Zealand. He also charted the St Lawrence river, which led to the defeat of the French at Montreal and the British domination of Canada. One of the members was James Watt, who improved the steam engine. Another discovered oxygen and invented soda water. A third was Josiah Wedgwood whose blue pottery is still sold. A fourth was Erasmus Darwin, supposedly the best medico in England at the time and the paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin. Watt became very friendly with the Swiss chemist Ami Argand who had invented the first efficient oil lamp. Argand also helped the Montgolfier brothers with their hot air balloons and probably met King Louis of France before the Revolution. The man who taught chemistry to Argand was also the first to climb Mount Blanc. And so on, and on, and on.