Models of the small world. (English) Zbl 1049.82520
Summary: It is believed that almost any pair of people in the world can be connected to one another by a short chain of intermediate acquaintances, of typical length about six. This phenomenon, colloquially referred to as the “six degrees of separation,” has been the subject of considerable recent interest within the physics community. This paper provides a short review of the topic.
MSC:
82B31 | Stochastic methods applied to problems in equilibrium statistical mechanics |
82B28 | Renormalization group methods in equilibrium statistical mechanics |
91D30 | Social networks; opinion dynamics |