Each of us has ever thought about how vast and immense the world is, how many there are absolutely different people on Earth. Despite the differences in age, gender, skin color, all people are connected. Sometimes one may even wonder how many friends and acquaintances each have.
Probably, deeply thinking about this, the Hungarian science fiction writer Fridéša Carinti wrote the story “Chain Links” in 1929. It was for the first time that he presented the theory of six handshakes. He offers to conduct an unusual experiment and prove that every person can contact absolutely any inhabitant of the planet through people familiar to each other and, at the same time, their number will not exceed six.
In 1969, the theory of handshakes was finally formed by American sociologists Jeffrey Travers and Stanley Milgram. Their hypothesis was that each person is familiar with any other through a chain of acquaintances, which consists of an average of five people. An interesting experiment was conducted. Residents of one small American town were given 300 envelopes. They had to forward them to a specific addressee through their friends. Only 60 letters were delivered. After some calculations and analyzes, experts came to the conclusion that each letter went through an average of five people. Thus, the theory of six handshakes was proved.
Scientific and technological progress has allowed scientists from Columbia University to repeat the Milgram experiment by e-mail. Twenty secret destinations were created. The participants were given their names, surnames, places of residence, education, occupation. Thousands of volunteers were invited to find them through friends and acquaintances. The first one to succeed was an Australian resident who found a secret address in Siberia through four acquaintances.
The world famous corporation Microsoft is also interested in the theory of six handshakes. It took them about two years to test it. During this time, 242 720 596 messages from users were analyzed. As a result, it was found that any of the 240 million users of this service can find another through 6.6 people on average.
The theory of 6 handshakes formed the basis of a large number of popular games. For example, many well-known scientists, including those with world names, play in the Erdös Number. This name was given in honor of the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös. He wrote a huge number of works, including in co-authorship. The essence of the game is as follows: if a scientist has one work, which are written together with Erdös, then he gets one point; if in collaboration with the scientist who wrote with Erdös, then two points. As you know, all Nobel laureates have large Erdös numbers.
One of the largest social networks, Facebook has also conducted research on this theory among its users. As a result, it was found that any two people registered on Facebook share 4.74 links.
The social network, popular in the CIS countries, VKontakte has launched the application “Chain of Friends - Theory of Six Handshakes”. It allows you to make dating chains among network users. Due to the fact that the audience of VKontakte is somewhat limited, the results are slightly different. Mostly chains have a size of three to four people. An interesting fact is that chains longer than six people are not found. This, in turn, confirms the original theory.
In addition to various experiments, the theory of handshakes was reflected in the cinema. She formed the basis of the plot of such famous films as "Christmas Trees", "Real Love".
Thanks to all kinds of research by scientists and sociologists, it was a joke that each of us, through five people, is familiar with the English Queen.