網站 http://www.happyforum.org/ 歡迎超連結並轉寄網址
論壇 http://www.happyforum.org/happy/ 歡迎至論壇討論
Time：第186次例會，2008年12月13日（週六）下午2:30 ~5:30
Place：
viewtopic.php?t=15
14:30~15:00 Free Talk
15:00~15:20 Speaker Session (Shown Chen)
15:20~15:30 10-minute break (理監事會議)
15:30~16:40 Topic discussion (feedback 16:30)
16:40~17:10 Hand-over Celebration (Wofy)
17:10~17:20 OMP Program (Happy)
Host: Dustin Hsu
Topic： Study revives six degrees theory
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7539329.stm
A US study of instant messaging suggests the theory that it takes only six steps to link everyone may be right - though seven seems more accurate.
Microsoft researchers studied the addresses of 30 billion instant messages sent during a single month in 2006.
Any two people on average are linked by seven or fewer acquaintances, they say.
The theory of six degrees of separation has long captured people's imagination - notably inspiring a popular 1993 film - but had recently seemed discredited.
One of the researchers on the Microsoft Messenger project, Eric Horvitz, said he had been shocked by the results.
"What we're seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity," he was quoted as saying by the Washington Post newspaper.
"People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore."
Urban myth?
The database used by Mr Horvitz and his colleague Jure Leskovec covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network, or roughly half of the world's instant-messaging traffic, in June 2006.
For the purposes of the study, two people were considered to be acquaintances if they had sent one another an instant message.
Examining the minimum chain lengths it would take to connect all the users in the database, they found the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78% of the pairs could be connected in seven links or fewer.
The idea of six degrees of separation was conceived by US academic Stanley Milgram, after experiments in which he asked people to pass a letter only to others they knew by name.
The aim was to get it, eventually, to a named person they did not know living in another city.
The average number of times it was passed on, he said, was six - hence, the six degrees of separation.
However, in July 2006, Judith Kleinfeld, professor of psychology at Alaska Fairbanks University, went back to Milgram's original research notes and discovered that 95% of the letters sent out had failed to reach their target.
She suggested that the six degrees theory might be the academic equivalent of an urban myth.
The Microsoft researchers said that, to their knowledge, their study had for the first time validated Milgram's theory on a planetary scale.
--------------------------------------------------------------
1) How was Microsoft's research team able to conclude that everyone on Earth is connected by 6.6 degrees?
2) Do you agree or disagree with the notion that you are separated from any random person on Earth by 6.6 degrees?
3) Why do you think Microsoft is sponsoring this type of research?
4) Think back to instances in your life when you needed a favor or when one was asked of you. What was the farthest degrees of separation between the two parties?
5) Do you know of anyone who lives far from Taiwan? Who do you instant message that lives the farthest away from you? Share and compare with your group members.
例會須知 參與例會，請自行列印當週的討論文章並帶至現場，圖示如下：
請將社團網站，加入我的最愛 http://www.happyforum.org/
新竹，每週六 (2008年8月起)
Hsinchu, Every Saturday
from Aug, 2008
Place：
viewtopic.php?t=15
台中，每週六 (2008年7月起)
Taichung, every Saturday
from July, 2008
Place：
viewtopic.php?t=15
高雄，每週六 (2007年4月起)
Kaohsiung, every Sunday
from April, 2007
Place：
viewtopic.php?t=15
台北，每週六 (2005年6月起)
Taipei, every Saturday
from June, 2005
Place：
viewtopic.php?t=15
total OMP Points of Doraemon Team
