Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

I was reading this book called as Tipping point today. The book talks about how a certain chain of events can lead to things/events beginning to tip over a certain point and explode into what is called as an epidemic. The book gives examples of how Hush Puppies (type of shoe) which were on the verge of being obsolete, how a certain chain of events triggered them to being back on the best selling shoes list again.

The book also talks about "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". The idea behind this is to try and link any actor or actress through movies they have acted in, to actor Kevin Bacon in less then six steps. A scientist in the University of Virginia has figured out a way to link all actors and actress to Kevin Bacon and came up with a average Bacon number of 2.8312 steps. So anybody who has ever acted in television or movies can be liked to Kevin Bacon in less then three steps. Also this scientist was able to develop a database of all actors and actress and rank them based on their connectedness. And the best connected actor is Rod Steiger... I will admit, I had never heard of "Rod Steiger" before now... He has made Oscar-winning movies like "On The Waterfront" and won an Oscar for his role in "In The Heat Of The Night". The book calls such people who can be reached in a few steps as "Connectors". Connectors serve as an intermediary for certain chain of events/things to tip over a certain point and explode into an epidemic. Interestingly connectors are not the only people/things that are responsible for tipping certain events. There are two more elements. More on that later......