Its a small world...if your very lucky

Richard Wiseman invites readers to take part in an experiment to find out why lucky people appear to be so well connected

We live in a small world, where every person on the planet is separated by a few personal contacts: a peasant in Ulan Bator is known to someone in China, who has a friend in Hong Kong, who knows the manager of the local Chinese restaurant - who just happens to know you.

However, I believe the world of lucky people is much smaller than the world of unlucky people and would like to invite you to take part in a unique experiment to test this idea, which could help us change our fortunes.

Ten years ago I started to investigate why some people are luckier than others. I wanted to know why some people always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, while others encountered little but ill fortune.

My research involved studying the lives of more than 400 exceptionally lucky and unlucky people, and revealed that luck is not something we are born with, or a magical force. Instead, without realising it, people create much of the luck in their lives through their attitude and behaviour.

One of the most curious phenomena to emerge from this research was the frequency with which lucky people experienced seemingly chance encounters. They would often describe how they had found themselves chatting to a stranger at a party, or on a train, only to discover that the two of them have a mutual acquaintance. Although many people experience this so-called "small world" phenomenon, lucky people seem to experience it more than most.

In conjunction with The Daily Telegraph and Cheltenham Festival of Science, I plan to conduct an unusual experiment to discover whether it is indeed a small world, and why the world of lucky people appears to be much smaller than the world of others.

The experiment is based on a study first conducted in the 1960s by American psychologist Stanley Milgram. Milgram wanted to investigate the fundamental nature of social networks and devised a simple, but ingenious, idea.

He sent letters to randomly selected people living in Nebraska and Kansas, and asked them to help ensure that the letter made its way to a named stockbroker in Boston. However, people were asked not to send the letter directly to the stockbroker. Instead, they were only allowed to send it to someone they knew on first-name terms, and who they thought might know the stockbroker.

One might have expected the letters to pass through hundreds of people before they reached the stockbroker. Instead, Milgram discovered something surprising. On average, the letters did not pass through hundreds, or even dozens, of people. In fact, they typically reached the stockbroker after about six or so mailings. Milgram's work suggested the intriguing possibility that we are all connected to one another via just six degrees of separation.

The idea has captured the imagination of both scientists and writers. Some have argued that the ideas behind Milgram's small-world research can be used to explain a diverse range of phenomena, including fundamental aspects of brain functioning and the underlying structure of the internet.

Unfortunately, Milgram's experiment has rarely been repeated and the idea has never been used to try to explain why some people experience so many lucky, small-world encounters. Luck Lab will set the record straight. It will discover how Milgram's finding stands up in the modern world, and it will investigate whether lucky people are especially good at tapping into this network.

The study will involve a large number of people, some lucky and some unlucky. Everyone taking part will be sent a letter and be asked to help ensure that it makes its way to a named stranger. As with Milgram's study, people will only be allowed to send the letter to someone they know personally.

The results will take a few months to complete, and will be announced in Connected, The Daily Telegraph and at the Cheltenham Festival of Science in June.

If you are interested in taking part in Britain's first small-world study, please visit www.luckfactor.co.uk/smallworld.html for further details.

Richard Wiseman is a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire. His book, The Luck Factor (Century), is available for £9.99 + £1.99 p&p. To order please call Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 155 7222.

"Overall, the results of this study provide some evidence that it looks as though there's much less to worry about than was initially thought." Still, Dr Mucci said, further studies need to examine possible association with other forms of cancer.

7 march 2003