what a small world

Last nite i was having mi late dinner at the coffeeshop near mi house and i met a fren of mine. He's 1 of mi PS during mi days in the army and surprisingly his father-in-law sells char kway tiao at the coffeeshop but sad to say he's quitting due to cancer. This brings back smth i heard a long time ago that every person is related to everyone within 6 levels. Apparently this is probably onli half true and the person who came up with this theory prob used some simple math to deduce this relationship. Suppose on average each person know 200 other people, regardless its family, relatives or frens and of cos this 200 other people know 200 other people and so on... by level 6 this figure easily exceeds the total population in this world. On closer inspection, there's many flaws within this model, firstly there could be major overlapping in the people involved here, so the effective number based on individuals not counted before within this level and the previous one is greatly reduced and there are many exceptions that must be neglected for this model to work. Loners, hermits and god knows who else must be excluded from this model also, however its a rather interesting theory based on a really simple math model. As mi math lecturer said, always start from a simple model and work ur way up so this is really a simple one to explain how globalisation has brought everyone together.