So I'm really getting into my birthday book which is "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky. And the reason for that is it talks about the study of group organization, communication and structure. Now I know that isn't the most common topic to start a conversation but it interested me because I have been thinking a lot on how I can communicate with leaders and members in my marching band as a leader.
What I found interesting was the Birthday Paradox. Let's say you're in a line of six people and you're comparing birthdays to see who shares the same one. Now if it's only two people comparing birthdays it's easy. However, a group consisting of more than two people can get complicated. Now in your group of six there's definitely a one in ten chance someone shares the same birthday as you. But what people are missing are the links between people meaning the number of chances someone has with another. For example, with four people there can be six comparisons; with five people there are ten comparisons and the math just keeps adding on! It's hard to explain this paradox but on page 27 of the novel there's an image demonstrating a clear visual of what was just explained.
I just thought it was really interesting how the number of possibilities in a certain routine can rapidly double if not triple its size without noticing it! I reflected back on the birthday paradox and tried to apply it to my life. I remember setting up a movie date with my group of cousins. There were about ten of us and there were three movies in debate: one was action, comedy and a comedy romance. Many were voting on the action one but there was an imbalance vote on the comedy and comedy romance films. Until it came to the point where we nailed it to just the conedy and the action film but still a decision couldn't be made. This complexity in deciding which movie to watch wasn't easy as I expected it to be. But it made me realize how groups communicated and how communication gets much more complex as a group gets larger (the Birthday Paradox)
I completely about how interesting the Birthday Paradox is. The way that a group of ten can have about 90 different decisions for one thing such as movies is so intriguing. Also how just a few more people can make the number increase by a huge amount. In chapter nine, there's a figure that shows connections between a large group and two small groups, which helps for a more visual learner such as myself, helped figure things out. The figure on the left shows how many different connections there could be between a group of ten people.
ReplyDelete