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Triadic Closure: 6 degrees of separation in Pittsburgh: Why it feels like you know everyone here

Article: https://theincline.com/2017/06/19/6-degrees-of-separation-in-pittsburgh-why-it-feels-like-you-know-everyone-here/

The article discusses an observation of how “everyone seems to know everyone in Pittsburg”. It then brings in an expert, Chris Warren, from Carnegie Mellon University, and explains some of his current work. Some of Warren’s work includes trying to map the connections between Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare, and Isaac Newton, using old documents. He then describes some connections that can link people together, such as “rivals and friends”, “debtor and creditor”, and relationships that no longer exist in our present world, such as “master [and] apprentice”. After describing this information, the article returns to analyzing Pittsburg’s scenario, stating how people of similar interests tend to know each other, and when someone is good friends with two others, triadic closure can make those other two people into friends as well. Then the article discusses how between the groups of people with similar interest, there can be individuals who cross between two groups, and they have “high betweenness” and essentially act as bridges. The article then states how the population is in decline in Pittsburg, and this leads to a large amount of older people, who have lived there for a long time, and will then have strong bonds to fellow citizens they have known for a long time.

This article relates to class because it demonstrates triadic closure and local bridges. As we discussed in class, when person A knows B and C, and then it is likely for B and C to meet because they obviously have something in common if they are both friends to someone with similar interests (A). This is clearly demonstrated in the article when it states how “everyone seems to know everyone”, demonstrating how triadic closure must have created bonds between a majority of the population. The article also connects to class because of the concept of local bridges. In the article it states how there are different groups, such as older people and younger people, and how sometimes you have individuals who have relationships between the groups, acting as bridges for relationships to form, and information to move.

Overall, I thought the article was very interesting, and find it cool how we can notice concepts we learn in class occurring in the world outside of the classroom examples.

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