I think most people have heard of this, but I guess that just like me, they've thought about it in a social, even fun and superficial level (by the way and just to show off a bit, I think I'm like 3 or 4 steps away from Noam Chomsky).
Research has shown that the same theory that explains how people connect with each other, can be applied to Computer networks, sexual relationships, the Web and even protein interactions.
All these structures come down to the same, a network of items. Most of these items are directly connected to a few, rather nearby items, but, here comes the important point, a few items are directly connected to very remote items, and a few items are connected to many other items (these are called Hubs). "Long distance connectors" and Hubs are the key of the theory, the global connectivity lies in them.
This "Degrees of Separation" thing is essential to understanding how diseases, computer viruses, ideas, conspiracies... can spread. Furthermore, it can be used to study how different diseases are linked by common genes, and how proteins interact inside our cells to cause disease.
These two sentences at the end of the documentary sums it up quite well:
"Network science is the foundation of the 21st century"
"All the major problems in science today depend on understanding networks"
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