Fact or folklore: six degrees separation?

Photo: quick blip of some fresh flowers bought today.
 
 Guess what? I met photographer, Colin Hattersley, this morning and he happened to mention he lives in Edinburgh. So I asked if he knew Joe Tree, founder of Blipfoto, who lives there.
 
“Oh yes, same street. We are friends.”
 
Talk about a small world!  There is a belief that we are all only six contacts away from anyone in the world. It sounds incredible but in fact it’s (almost) true.
 
Microsoft did  some research on it and found that the average is around 7 contacts.
 
Colin had been commissioned by the Macrobert arts centre to take some publicity shots of our older dance class. Well we were all on our best behaviour trying to remember our dance routine. Normally I would have asked the class to pose for a group pic for Blipfoto but in the circumstances I, for once, felt inhibited.