Information Theory

I don’t know if this deals with ‘Information Theory.’ In fact, I don’t really know what information theory is. But what I do know is that I’ve been pondering about the idea that there is a limited number of social acquintances that it takes to meet a target person.

Here’s a pic as an example.

‘ME’ meets ‘P1′, who introduces ‘ME’ to ‘P2.’ ‘P2′ is hanging out with the ‘Target’ who I’m introduced to by ‘P2.’ And so, my social network has built to include all 3 people, and only two people to the ‘Target.’

I’m really interested in learning more about the science or theory that gets into the nitty gritty of this type of stuff. I’d like some more statistics on what the average amount of people that it takes to be connected to someone famous. What is the optimal amount of people in a social network? This implies that you must keep in contact with them to keep them in your network. If you don’t stay in touch with someone, you lose them as a friend. And ideally, we’re talking about friends and not acquantances.

Update: I've learned since the original posting of this that how close someone is to you is called propinquity, and that you increase your propinquity to others by being close with many people.