Talk:Small-world experiment

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 * Archive 1

Marconi
I've read Marconi's 1909 Nobel Prize speech and am struggling to figure out which section is being referred to by "conjectures based on his radio work in the early 20th century, which were articulated in his 1909 Nobel Prize address, may have inspired". In his speech, Marconi makes no reference to the number of people that could be connected through wireless telegraphy. The only part of the text which refers to the future uses of wireless is thus:

"Its application is also increasing as a means of communicating between outlying islands, and also for the ordinary purposes of telegraphic communication between villages and towns, especially in the colonies and in newly developed countries.

However great may be the importance of wireless telegraphy to ships and shipping, I believe it is destined to an equal position of importance in furnishing efficient and economical communication between distant parts of the world and in connecting European countries with their colonies and with America." [pp.25-26].

Furthermore, I can find no references that directly (or indeed indirectly) connect Marconi's alleged statistical work or conjectures on small worlds/six degrees of separation with Karinthy's 1929 short story, Chains (Láncszemek), the latter apparently being the earliest published example of this concept. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.11.106.218 (talk) 16:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * This article says that although Guare attributed the idea to Marconi, the author couldn't find it in Marconi's writings. &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 19:13, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Possibly copyvio
This line (added here): "Stanley Milgram (see Fig. 1) re-visited this idea", when there isn't a "Fig. 1" in the article, leads me to suspect that at least part of this article was lifted verbatim from something else, without attribution. Since it's unclear if how much, if any, of the article is a copyright violation, I won't remove any of it, but if anyone knows what it might be from, please note that here so we can investigate. -kotra 23:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

http://www.answers.com/topic/small-world-experiment

They just copy Wikipedia for their own ends, I'm reasonably sure that it came from http://austria.phys.nd.edu/netwiki/index.php?title=Milgram_Experiment in any case, it's a mess since someone did a copy-and-paste move. 68.39.174.238 22:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There are also broken references to Fig. 2 and 3 130.60.155.152 08:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to "Possibly Copyvio"
I apologize, but it has been a while since I have visited this page. I see now that there has been a debate on the originality of the content. Regarding the possible copyvio, I was the original author of the Netwiki page at the University of Notre Dame, which this article draws heavily from. I am a former ND student and social network researcher. You will find that many of the network-related wikipedia articles will share content with the articles on NetWiki, since authors of the wiki at Notre Dame were strongly encouraged to make edits at wikipedia, if necessary. It would be a shame if the content of this page were removed over copyright issues, so please contact me if you have concerns or need further verification. Thanks. --Jerfgoke 20:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

See WP:Copyright for the problem. What is the link to the Netwiki page exactly, and what copyright statement does it bear? The link http://austria.phys.nd.edu/netwiki/index.php?title=Milgram_Experiment did not work for me. We cannot use material that is not explicitly either released as public domain, or licensed under a GFDL on equivalent CC license. Publishing a wiki does not by itself make it free for others to use.

''If there is additional material from there, where is it? It must all be removed if not properly licensed.'' WP can not make exceptions to this. Our material can be used by anyone in the world for any purpose, and we must ensure that it is not in copyright violation itself. This is taken very seriously here, as it ought to be. Those devoted to publishing free content have a particularly strong obligation to themselves obey the existing law strictly.

It is possible for the individual original authors to donate their material to wikipedia. If the wiki can still be edited, this is best done by placing a GFDL license on the appropriate wiki page. Otherwise, each individual author must follow the policy as outlined on WP:Copyright for donating material to WP.

The only alternative is a complete rewrite. I note that it is very likely that the article here is in excessive detail in any case; this is an encyclopedia, not an academic review. You may want to consider abbreviating it here very sharply, and publishing this in full on Wikibooks, if you can clear the copyright. DGG (talk) 20:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * To clarify, since it seems there is still some confusion: the NetWiki site was a temporary wiki set up for a course in complex networks at the University of Notre Dame. The NetWiki site is no longer active, and the machine that hosted it has been decommissioned, since the research team responsible for it has recently left the university. The authors of the NetWiki pages were encouraged to contribute their content to Wikipedia---hence the similarities between the two articles. To be fully clear, I am the original author of both the page at http://austria.phys.nd.edu/netwiki/index.php?title=Milgram_Experiment (which is no longer active for reasons stated above) as well as this page at Wikipedia. Regardless of what you think about this article's detail level, there should be no question about its copyright status. For verification, you can contact anyone affiliated with the original NetWiki project---as User:Han-Kwang has already done according to comments on the articles for deletion page. As an academic, I feel it would be a shame for content to be lost over supposed copyright issues that can be quite easily verified. However, I regret that I cannot spend any more time arguing these points, so delete this article if you must. --Jerfgoke 21:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Since you added the content in question, and you say you are the original author of the content, I believe the consensus appears to be to let the content stay. Though we cannot easily confirm you were the original author of the content, I think we can trust you with reasonable certainty. Barring any complaints from the University of Notre Dame, it is unlikely to be removed for copyright reasons. Thank you for providing your explanations. -kotra (talk) 10:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge suggestion
See Talk:Small world phenomenon. `'mikka 18:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
 * note--that page has by now been re-directed here. DGG (talk) 20:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sentinelese people
The article currently reads: "the Sentinelese people number 250, or 38 billionths of one percent of the world population". Given that there are approximately 6.7 billion people in the world, each person is 14 billionths of one percent of the world population. 250 people are then 250*14 billionths of a percent, or ~=4000 billionths of a percent = 4 millionths of a percent. So the number in the article is off by a factor of ten thousand. --Kvaks (talk) 09:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Figure
This figure looks wrong. There is no chance at all that any real life network looks that simple with every node connected to a line of nodes. As stated in the article there will a few highly connected nodes forming stars, and then several lines with few or no connection at all to get to the terminal points. Something more like File:Network.png or File:Social-network.svg. Calimo (talk) 16:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Historical Context
The article says "Milgram revisited Gurevich's experiments in acquaintanceship networks when he conducted a highly publicized set of experiments beginning in 1967 at Harvard University. One of Milgram's most famous works is a study of obedience and authority, which is widely known as the Milgram Experiment."

To me, that implies that the Milgram Experiment happened in 1967 or later. However, the Wikipedia page for the Milgram Experiment says it started in 1961. This paragraph seems confusing to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattack (talk • contribs) 01:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear Mattack, I think you're confusing the Milgram small world experiment (which did start in 1967 as I recall -- I was there -- with the obedience to authority experiment, which as say did start much earlier. But I disagree that only one is known as "the Milgram experiment". Different people recognize different experiments. Bellagio99 (talk) 22:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Other Implications
One implication of small worlds and the package experiment that seems logically cannot be refuted is that a package can travel a totally unexpected/non-conventional route and that society might work exactly like the internet: dissemination doesn't necessarily involve heirarchy: this has potential implications for government and activism as well as being already used in marketing: I want to put this in the article and need encyclopaedic reputable references! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kathybramley (talk • contribs) 08:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Other Implications
One implication of small worlds and the package experiment that seems logically cannot be refuted is that a package can travel a totally unexpected/non-conventional route and that society might work exactly like the internet: dissemination doesn't necessarily involve hierarchy: this has potential implications for government and activism as well as being already used in marketing: I want to put this in the article and need encyclopaedic reputable references!Kathybramley (talk) 08:35, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

New developments
Someone might want to add something on this if they think it is of relevance. Facebook have announced that there is around 3.74 degrees of separation between Facebook users. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15844230Toboso (talk) 20:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Toboso: YOU should add it, but please work in the original Facebook announcement, and not the more superficial BBC clip. Bellagio99 (talk) 21:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Three or six?
I read Milgram's article from Psychology Today, and it gives the figure of five intermediaries (six links) quoted at one place in this article. But elsewhere, this article says "Milgram's study results showed that people in the United States seemed to be connected by approximately three friendship links, on average."

That claim doesn't cite a source. Is there some sense in which it's true? 71.197.166.72 (talk) 16:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

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Criticism section
The criticism section says to list the summaries of four particular methodological criticisms. A few comments i have regarding things:

1 & 2: when taken together, each one of these limitations on the accuracy have the opposite effect as the other. So, while each by itself may compromise the accuracy of the results, if both of them are true, they should offset (that is, cancel each other out) Should this be noted?

3: i can't honestly tell what this has anything to do with the experiment at all. It appears to me more like promotion of someone's research that is of a different topic.

4: this is not really a serious criticish c.f.m...no reasonable person with common sense would interpret "any two people in the world" as including every isolated community on every back corner of the planet (not even truly a part of the world, anyway -- world and planet are different concepts). Should this "criticism" be listed in the same subsection as if it were a serious one? Firejuggler86 (talk) 17:15, 29 December 2019 (UTC)