Loading...Do you know the Barack Obama? Or perhaps a Mongolian sheep herder named Tömörbaatar? Most likely you don’t know these people (unless my reader’s demographic is wider than I thought), but what about someone you know? And if they don’t know the president or the sheepherder, what about someone they know? And if not them, what about someone they know? There’s a theory called Six Degrees Of Separation that says if you meet your friend’s friend’s friend’s friend’s friend’s friend (6 times, hence the name), then they will have a connection to anyone in the world, including Obama and that Mongolian sheep herder.
This idea, the Six Degrees Of Separation, seems crazy at first but upon further inspections gets more and more reasonable. In this great video by Veritasium, Derek explains the theory through a number of interesting ways, including math, pure logic and a bunch of real life tests. And in the end, Derek even creates his own way of testing the theory. Overall, the video is a great explanation of the crazy theory.