Category Archives: two degrees

poll, six degrees, two degrees

Miscellaneous Monday Once More

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Mondays always seem to be the tag ends for me. It is the day that all kinds of little things come up and eat their share of the clock. Thus you get to suffer through my potpourri of things to blither on about.

In the Two Degrees of Dan, several readers came up with their own two degree comments. It is always interesting to see how people can be connected. One of the reasons for the Two Degrees thing was to get some low degree linkages with readers. Those can then be used to illustrate the social network property that any two people on the planet earth are seldom more that six degrees away from each other. For example:

Kris Loves Chocolate: Kris->Airline Passenger (aunt of Condoleezza)->Condoleezza Rice
One of the former ministers of our church, Beth, attended Denver University and her roommate was none other than Condoleezza Rice. So I am related to Kris by the fifth degree Dan->Beth->Condoleezza->AP(aunt)->Kris.

♥ Kathy:Kathy->Dad Dan->Gene Wilder
To which I connect via the following tidbit. Back in the days before the IBM PC, I bought a CP/M based computer from a small Hollywood company that sold a script editing and production system and had to manufacture their own computers to run the software. So they developed a sideline of selling these computers to techies like me. The company was so small that they only had one salesman, named Bill. Bill was very proud of the fact that he had dealt personally with Gene Wilder to sell the script system to his production company. Thus, we have Kathy->Dad Dan->Gene->Bill->Dan. The fifth degree strikes again.

Now here is a question that I have never seen an answer for: What is the relevance of the peoples age in the degree of the relationship between them? Obviously, newborns don’t know anyone yet and so they get at least one extra link via their parents to anyone else. I.e. newborn1->mom1->mom2->newborn2. But at some point they meet enough other people unknown to their parents that they can link without first going through the parents. I.e. newborn1(older)->newborn2(older). So does that mean babies have longer link chains than they will have when they are older? You can tell that I am a scientist because I worry about such things. Anyone ever heard a good answer to this question?

In other things, it was warm here today, close to 80 degrees. It was so nice that I walked to city hall and then walked over to Mom’s to collect some stuff and then walked out to the nursing home to deliver it. Mom is doing well and really hopes to get back home Friday. All depends on what the doctor has to say. So I got my seven miles in without Molly the dog today (she is busy moping since Laurie headed back to the mountains today).

One final random meandering and then I’ll let you go. I have noticed that there are several ladies in the nursing home that have broken bones as the cause of their stay. In many cases they suffer from low bone density and the bones in question (hips, legs, ankles and even backs) just snapped while they were doing such mundane things as standing at the kitchen sink. I want to remind all women to make sure that they are having their bone density checked as they age. It’s not something that anyone thinks of when they are younger, but beyond a certain age it can be a real problem. These are all alert and lively ladies that are now confined to wheel chairs. There are treatments that can help if the lowered bone density is caught in time. Please take care of yourself so that it is not you in their place in the coming years!

Last week I promised a poll to determine the fate of the LinkWithin widget at the bottom of each post, so here it is:

Note that you can vote as often as you like and this page will allow voting thru the 21st. Thus if you really have strong feelings, you can vote a lot. This is one election the *YOU* definitely can buy. Contact me if you want to bribe me to make the vote turn out in your favor – I’m open to any and all offers. {*grin*}

six degrees, two degrees

Two Degrees of Relation

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Everyone knows the old standby Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game. If you aren’t familiar, go ahead and click the link – we’ll wait. Good, now you understand the six degree thingy. What I am about to do is play a short round of Two Degrees of Dan. Here the goal is to get as famous as you can be by no more than two steps from me. I’ll add another restriction just to keep the playing field level – I cannot have met the final object of the link myself. (Otherwise there are a lot of famous and semi-famous people I have meet in person and we would be playing One Degree of Dan. {*grin*})

First Round:
I once spend a very pleasant summer on the beaches of San Diego at the Scripps Institute. It was a special seminar on Quantum Chromodynamics that attracted a number of the young researchers in the field, including myself, to sit at the feet of the established gurus. That in and of itself has absolutely nothing to do with this round of two degrees, I just needed to reminisce and brag for a bit. The real key is that my roommate for the time in San Diego was also named Dan and he had a very famous mother. Yes, that’s right, my roomie was non other than Daniel Friedan, son of Betty Friedan. You know, the feminist writer, author of “The Feminine Mystique“, and primary founder of the National Organization for Women.

What did I learn from the experience? I learned that one might not desire such a famous parent if you were as shy and self-sufficient as he was. Not that Dan was any slouch since he went on to become a MacArthur Fellow (the so called genius award) and co-founded the high-energy theory group at Rutgers.

So for this round we have Dan -> Dan ->Betty for the two degrees of Dan.

Second Round:
During the course of my thesis work, there was one person who I ran into often at conferences and in meetings. He was based at Cal Tech at the time. We spent many a break arguing about parton physics versus constituent interchange physics. Can you guess who this person was and who his very famous sister is? Perhaps a hint – his name is Rick Field. Yes, that’s right, his sister is non other than Sally Field, the famous actress. Need more evidence? Click here.

So for this round we have Dan->Rick->Sally for the two degrees of Dan. Note that if we remove the restriction that I can not have met the final link in person, we could pull another chain here since Rick was at Cal Tech to work with Richard Feynman, the Nobel laureate famed in his later years for heading the Challenger explosion investigation. Thus we would then have Dan -> Rick -> Richard or as it would have been put by anyone who spent and time around Feynman, Dan -> Rick -> Dick.

So what can you come up with for the two degrees of you? Remember that you can’t have met the final link in person.