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课件网) Unit 10 Connections Lesson 1 How Closely Connected Are We 2. Read the first two paragraphs of the article on the theory “Six Degrees of Separation”. What does it mean and who invented this theory It states that any person on Earth can be connected to any other person through a chain of no more than five other people. The theory was first introduced by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy, in the early 20th century. 3. Read the article and find out about the development of the “Six Degrees of Separation” theory. Take notes in the table below. 1967 Mid-1990s 2003 2011 Who How Findings/ results 1967 Mid-1990s 2003 2011 Who How Findings/results Stanley Milgram Two college students in the United States Columbia University the University of Milan He chose a random sample of people in the middle of America and asked them to send packages to a stranger in the state of Massachusetts. The idea of the game was to link any actor to Kevin Bacon, a famous American actor and musician, through no more than six links. The experiment involved 24,163 email chains with 18 target people in 13 different countries. The experiment analysed the relationship between 721 million social media users. It only took between five and seven people to get the parcels delivered. The game was being played in universities across the United States. The results confirmed that the average number of links in the chain was six. 92 percent were connected by only four stages, or five degrees of separation. 1. Why did Milgram and Columbia University both label their experiments “Small-world” 5. Group Work Think and share Because they believed that any person on Earth could be connected to any other person through a chain of no more than five other people. In this sense the world is small. 5. Group Work Think and share 2. Why do you think people study how people are connected Probably people want to study the structures of human society, the rules of human social activities, and how people are connected with each other. 6. Complete the sentences with the correct form of the words. 1. In 1967, _____ Stanley Milgram did an experiment to find out how many degrees of separation there were between strangers in different parts of America. 2. All of the _____ in Milgram’s experiment were delivered to the right people after passing through the hands of between five and seven people. random sociologist network publish package chain sociologist packages 6. Complete the sentences with the correct form of the words. random sociologist network publish package chain 3. The results of Milgram’s experiment _____ in the magazine Psychology Today. 4. The results of the “Columbia Small-world Project” confirmed that the average number of links in the _____ was six. were published chain 6. Complete the sentences with the correct form of the words. random sociologist network publish package chain 5. People doing experiments into “Six Degrees ... ...
