Thursday, January 28, 2010

Small worlds

Hammamet, TunisiaImage via Wikipedia

A miracle happened today. I am currently at a conference in Hammamet, Tunisia and as always, there was the social event tonight. I wanted to meet new people so I decided to sit at a table, where I didn't know anyone. And actually this just confirmed one of my intuitions.
It actually turned out, that one person at the table was also from my country. This was the first surprise. Another visited the country for a conference recently. However, the biggest surprise was when we all came back to the hotel and realized that our rooms were all neighbors.
Isn't this just incredible? You sit to a table to meet new people, but then it turns out that they are closer to you that you would have imagined? This is the small world effect.
So the question is: is there a hidden attraction between people who have something in common, without actually knowing each other? (e.g. visited the same place, come from same country, live close). I think yes, after this event.
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2 comments:

Szilárd VAJDA said...

I have a similar story. In 2004 I visited Calcutta, the capital city of India until 1911. In the campus, the first guy I met was a Hungarian. Can you imagine?

Johann Stan said...

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, it is a nice story also, as meeting a hungarian in Calculatta is very improbable. Does this hidden force really exist? :))