For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Six degrees of Separation (07.07.09)

Six degrees of Separation (also referred to as the “Human Web”) refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth. It was popularised by a play written by John Guare in 1990 and the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game that became popular in the late 1990s. If you shake CabbieBlog by the hand for instance you are but two steps from our Queen.

Let’s try a blatantly self-serving experiment. If the principle of “six degrees of separation” is correct, then it should be possible to spread the news of CabbieBlog to the entire world simply by word of mouse. If each person who saw this site told even just one other person about it, the chain should eventually reach the entire world. Of course, I don’t need or want the whole world to know about this site, just all the English speaking people. If everyone who might enjoy this site found out about it, I could hardly ask for more.

If you were to metaphorically shake CabbieBlog’s and you would only be two degrees of separation from Her Majesty The Queen, as look where that would get you.