Six Degrees

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2011

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Infinite Monkeys, Brian Cox and Robin Ince, are joined on stage by special guest Stephen Fry and science writer Simon Singh to find out whether we really are only 6 degrees of separation from anyone else? What started as an interesting psychology experiment in connectedness, back in the 1960's, has not only taken on a life of its own in popular culture, but in the last 10 years has begun to influence everything from mathematics, to engineering and even biology. Brian and Robin look at how the concept of 6 degrees has influenced a whole new field of science and whether, in this age of social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook, we are in fact, far more connected than ever before. We also find out what Robin's "Bacon" number is. Whether Brian has an "Erdos" number, and whether, like Russell Crowe, any of the panel have successfully managed to combine the two.

Producer: Alexandra Feachem.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a download from the BBC. To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk-radio4.
0:07.0	Hello, this is the Infinite Monkey Cage. I'm sitting next to Professor Brian Cox of the Order of the British Empire Fellow of the Institute of Physics, International Fellow of the Explorers Club, Professor of Particle Physics and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Manchester.
0:21.0	But I always prefer to think of him like this.
0:24.0	Stand back to the sound of that drum, run for your life cause till the bottom of the wall.
0:33.0	That was dare, don't need a reason with teenage keyboardist Brian Cox. Brian Cox there a song don't need a reason from a physicist, a man who believed that once things might occur without reason.
0:45.0	It's a song that violates causality which is built into the fabric of space time. I'll give you that Robin.
0:53.0	Dare are the only band ever to have broken up over scientific differences.
1:00.0	And next to me is Robin in, so we'll be getting in the way of scientific discussion over the next 30 minutes.
1:06.0	But only because that's the cliched role he's been given in order to make science more accessible to a wider audience.
1:11.0	Fortunately Brian still thinks that I'm playing a character, I'm not, I am an idiot.
1:16.0	Having read up on Joseph Lieber's experiments that proved, or at least possibly proved the illusion of free will, at least I know it's not my fault, it is predestined.
1:23.0	And I don't even know why I said what I just said.
1:26.0	A very civil comedic touring machine, go delian in his undecidability.
1:31.0	Hey, very good.
1:33.0	Oh, that's exactly what he wanted you to do as well, Stephen Fry, you fell into his trap.
1:36.0	He never normally writes things like that, he went, I'll write that because Stephen Fry's on.
1:43.0	This whole show's changed.
1:45.0	Today we're going to be examining six degrees of separation.
1:49.0	Although for some people it's just a pub game connecting Kevin Bacon to any other actor.
1:53.0	The ideas behind it have ramifications, epidemiology, genetics and mathematics.
1:58.0	And I am delighted to say that this is the first topic we've ever done in any of the series where Brian actually came up when I have no idea what this is.
2:05.0	Yes, ladies and gentlemen, observe the feet of clay that so often walk near a volcano.
	...

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