Sunday, September 11, 2005

Six degrees of Separation :
SIX--> The Greeks were mad about this number. It has a special significance in Jewish mysticism because that is how long it took God to create the Universe. Looking around us we see more interesting things. The honey comb is made of small hexagonal structures. A grain of salt is cubic and has six sides and so does the six sided snow flake. Take a dollar or a carrom coin and it can be seen that we can place only six similar coins around it in a plane such that they all have contact with it.
In Number theory, number 6 has the significance of being the smallest perfect number. A number is perfect if it can be expressed as the sum of its factors.
Example : 6 = 1+2+3
28 = 1+2+4+7+14
Perfect numbers are very rare and there are only four of them between 1 and 10,000. They are 6, 28,496 and 8128.
I came across an interesting theory on BBC internet news today. It said that every person on this planet is related to everyone else by just six social acquaintances. Be it the president of America and a boatman on the ganges . If A is related to B by six social acquaintances, it means that A knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows B. Interesting, eh ?
The theory of six degrees of separation stems from the "Small World Theory" and there has been a lot of mathematical reasearch going on in this field. There are also experimental proofs to corroborate the theory of six degrees.
Scientists suggest that the six degrees theory might hold the key to understanding the way signals are transmitted through our nervous system. They are also exploring the theory to find more efficient ways to route airlines, lay power lines and also hyperlink the pages on the web.
Unbelievable, isn't it ? :-)

2 Comments:

At 7:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cool.. I enjoy reading this.I like the no 6 properties.

6 is the atomic no of Carbon and Diamond is the hardest substance known in the world.


Thanks,
Naren.

 
At 4:18 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is really nice.need regular updates to this site.

Bheem

 

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