MATHEMATICIANS have been playing word games. They’ve found that any word in the English language can be linked to any other in just a few steps, following the same “six degrees of separation” principle best known for connecting Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon with other film stars.
In the 1960s, a famous experiment run by social psychologist Stanley Milgram suggested that any two people in the US could be linked together by only six “friend of a friend” steps. Applied mathematician Ying-Cheng Lai at Arizona State University in Tempe wanted to known if this kind of “small world” property was a…
