According to its original definition, "Six Degrees of Separation" is the idea that everything in this world (especially living beings) is connected by six steps or fewer. One of the most famous examples is the project "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", but there is also "Six Degrees of Wikipedia", which applies the same mechanism to the encyclopedia's articles.
Wikipedia informs on its main portal that it has almost seven million articles in English. The quality among them varies greatly, and a part of that information always becomes obsolete in record time, but generally it does a good job as a starting point. With so many internal links, it is not far-fetched to think that all Wikipedia articles are linked in one way or another, and that gives rise to a very interesting exercise. For example: What is the relationship between a hamburger and the Chrysler Building? Simple: The hamburger article mentions diners, which in turn have a link to the Art Deco style, and of course, Art Deco leads to the Chrysler Building.
"Six Degrees of Wikipedia": Linking articles, one strange route at a time
How did that link come about? Thanks to the Six Degrees of Wikipedia portal: I searched both terms and let the internal engine do the heavy lifting. The best part is that it usually offers more than one path. In the hamburger-Chrysler case, it managed to find 255 routes with three degrees of separation. Every time we imagine a supposedly impossible combination, Six Degrees of Wikipedia leaves us surprised. Another example? LG and mosquito coils. It turns out LG developed optical discs together with Hitachi, which in turn was a customer of Topre, and Topre was inspired by mosquito coils to create its switches.
The challenge is open: "Six Degrees of Wikipedia" has a certain preference for three-degree solutions, but if you think you can find a combination that goes beyond six degrees, leave a comment!
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