Wikitainment

While mindlessly trolling through Wikipedia, I stumbled upon a spiffy idea for a web challenge.

We’ve all heard of six degrees of separation – the notion that any two people can be connected through six other people. I, for one, have some entertaining contacts just two or three degrees away. For example, my former insurance agent’s son has three Super Bowl rings, my grandfather knew the pilot of the Enola Gay, I’ve had one-on-one conversations with a member of the Reagan administration and with Nixon’s Secretary of the Interior, and my mom works with Mary Kay Latourneau’s ex-husband.

Presidents to pedophiles … oh, yeah.

So here’s the challenge. Start with a topic on Wikipedia – say Hillary Clinton. Then pick another topic – say Castration. Now see how many (well, few) clicks it takes using only linked Wikipedia articles to connect the two.

(Hillary-to-Castration takes five clicks: Prostate Cancer, Androgens, Vas deferens, Vasectomy, Castration.)

The challenge, then, is to find two topics which seem to have no bearing on each other and find the shortest route between them. Bonus points are awarded based on degree of obscurity.

Please pass this idea on and send back your challenge ideas.