Something Strange Happens When You Trace How Connected We Are - our latest video, ad-free!
Added 2025-10-02 07:58:46 +0000 UTCThe beautiful math behind six degrees of separation.
The simulations are now added below!
To play around with the simulations in the video, you can follow these links: Disease spreading - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation2
Preferential attachment - https://ve42.co/barabasiAlbertSim
Comments
Great question! And I think the key reason behind what you're getting at is that one shortcut doesn't just drastically reduce one path length - it drastically reduces many path lengths. And the bigger the network, the more paths are affected by a single shortcut AND the greater the reduction on each individual path. - James, writer for this video.
Veritasium
2025-10-07 09:55:15 +0000 UTCHubs also exist in the human 6 degrees situation. I worked at Microsoft in the '90s, so I'm only a two degrees away from Bill Gates. But he's connected to a huge number of people all around the world. Because I have a closer-than-average connection to a major hub, I might be only 5 degrees away from a huge part of humanity.
Michael Hobbs
2025-10-03 15:50:16 +0000 UTCThe animation that showed how, as a network grows, hubs form automatically - It quickly looked very much like a map of Eastern Massachusetts. There was no planning of settlements or roads in those days. Boston itself quickly became a hub, but then villages outside of Boston also became smaller hubs. See the Newtons for a grea example.
Michael Hobbs
2025-10-03 15:46:15 +0000 UTCAnd coincidentally we had dinner with a friend once in Australia... Where do tenuous "shortcuts" fit in the model :p
James Zaki
2025-10-03 14:07:47 +0000 UTCApologies, I should have added it to the description here too. It's now been added! - Matt, Publishing Lead
Veritasium
2025-10-03 13:50:23 +0000 UTCAmazing information. I had no idea you needed so few "shortcuts" to transform a fully clustered network into close to the same degrees of separate as a fully random network. It is really surprising. Which leads me to my question: I get the results of the math, but you did not dive very deeply into WHY it works that way. Maybe a sequel video? Or should we get Grant or Brady to do it? :)
Patrick W. Gilmore
2025-10-02 21:01:09 +0000 UTC<3 indeed. Looking forward to the network simulation code --- github?
TTST
2025-10-02 09:33:41 +0000 UTCBrilliant! Absolutely loved this <3
James Zaki
2025-10-02 09:16:08 +0000 UTC
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