Six Degrees of Separation

I love Wikipedia. In fact, I spend about an hour each day surfing through random articles of things I know little about and find interesting. If I run into something I have no idea about, I make a mental note to Wikipedia-it as soon as I can. I use Wikipedia more than I use Google and maybe as much as Facebook.

The other day, while pillaging information from Wiki, I stumbled upon an article- Six Degrees of Separation. According to the article:

Six degrees of separation (also referred to as the “Human Web”) refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth.

Being the semi-nerd that I am, I was immediately fascinated with this idea. No matter how big the world is, in theory, you are only six degrees of separation from another certain person in the world. I Guess this backs up the old saying, “it’s a small world.”

Moreover, this reminded me of the physics concepts of action at a distance and non-locality. The Copenhagen Interpretation asserts that quantum mechanic systems violate the locality principle (i.e. that distant objects cannot have direct influence on one another: an object is influenced directly only by its immediate surroundings). In fact, experiments have shown that entangled quantum states do violate said principle, as entangled states collapse simultaneously upon measurement of one of their entangled components, regardless of the spatial distance between the two states. Gosh, that is a mouthful. Basically, non-locality allows for instantaneous action at a distance: the interaction of two objects which are separated by a space (it could be as large as half the universe or larger!) with no known arbitrator of the interaction. Einstein had a fit because it meant faster than light communication, violating special relativity! Einstein never really liked quantum mechanics anyway but the theory remains very powerful and useful today.

This leads me to think that the interaction of two individuals separated by a distance could be true even if those individuals are unaware of the interaction. Only six degrees of separation (at most) from any other human being that you don’t know? Wow. It would be neat if love could be the interaction. Is it possible that two minds are linked from the moment they are born, and no matter the distance one feels what the other feels? When they meet, do they share the bond of love? If it works for electrons in the same atomic system then it can work for us!

Tags: Physics