It's a small world

If you never heard of the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy, don't feel bad. Neither had I until I looked further into the theory of Six Degrees. He invented it in his short story, Chains (Láncszemek) in 1929.

The idea of the theory is that through no more than six persons, you are connected to everyone on the entire planet. Of course, you can question how well you have to know someone for them to count as a degree. Let's assume for the sake of this post, that you have at least chatted amiably with the persons in question, on more than one occasion.

Now considering that both the Chinese and the Indian populations have exceeded a billion each, it's likely that the theory falls apart, particularly in the more rural areas. However, I don't think it would take too many extra degrees, until even these huge populations are connected.

I am an average middle class guy from Helsinki, Finland. A nobody on the global scale. I have no famous friends, but a former colleague of mine (1^st degree (I'll respect her privacy and won't post her name)) is the mother of HIM frontman Ville Valo (2^nd degree). He in turn, is friends with Jackass star Bam Margera (3^rd degree). Bam knows an awful lot of people, but let's take a few examples from his MTV show Viva la Bam; the band Slayer, Jack Osbourne and Sean Penn (all 4^th degrees).

From Slayer, we get as an example the bands Motorhead and Manowar as my 5th degrees. (They toured together).

Jack Osbourne is the son of Ozzy Osbourne (5^th degree), and I can't even begin to guess at all the people he knows. All these people are my 6^th degrees.

With Sean Penn, we get a veritable Who's Who of Hollywood stars like Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman and Al Pacino. They are all also my 5^th degrees. And let's not forget that Sean was married to Madonna. So all their friends and aquaintances are my 6^th degrees.

Of course, none of these famous people have the faintest idea who I am, and it won't affect my life in any way what so ever, but it is fun to see how the connections can criss-cross the planet.