Thread: Six degrees of separation

Originally Posted by Xei

It's not universally true though, obviously, considering there are some communities who have no contact with the outside world.

That's like saying you can't follow hypertext links to an isolated computer, and then saying that disproves the theory behind network pathing...

Obviously, the underlying assumption is that the fractal is relatively dense, so that there exists at least one path between any two points in the space. If that wasn't the case, then there's no discussion to be had at all. Like, I know I can't do calculus on oranges. That's why I stick to functions.

I don't personally see how fractals are relevant...

But yes, clearly if your conjecture is that each node can be reached via only six edges then an isolated node disproves that conjecture.

Originally Posted by Xei

I don't personally see how fractals are relevant...

But yes, clearly if your conjecture is that each node can be reached via only six edges then an isolated node disproves that conjecture.

No, you're missing the point. I'm saying that given connectedness, there's an optimal strategy for finding the shortest path that doesn't require global knowledge.