I just discovered Reed's Law
Chris Corrigan
chris at chriscorrigan.com
Thu Sep 12 15:12:04 PDT 2002
Jaime wrote:
> Hi Chris!!!
>
> Congratulations for a job well done. I always face
> claims about the small number of participants for
> prospective OS mettings in Bolivia. Reed's Law will be
> an excellent argument to show possibilities. However,
> I can not replicate the formula in order to confirm
> your findings for 12 people and 4083 possible groups.
> Could you please explain in a more detailed way the
> formula for me?
>
The way I figure it, it's 212-12-1. So that's 2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2
which is 4096. 4096-12=4084. 4084-1=4083.
That's how I did it anyway. That gives you all the possible
combinations of groups of more than two. Of course in OST, often groups
of one meet, so that number is a little low. I'm no math genius, but
any way you cut it, the numbers are pretty impressive. A group of 32
yields a number close to 22 billion, which is something like four times
the population of the earth. Not that you can make any comparisons
directly, but as a way of illustrating the scale of possibilities, to be
able to walk around a room of 32 and say "within this circle, the number
ways of organizing ourselves dwarf the population of humans on the
earth" is a pretty compelling introduction to the potential of
potential. I'm going try the line this weekend, with a group of 32.
> By the way, in the battle or sluggish against GM
> (genetically modified) seeds and organisms, your
> finding is very important.
>
I thought so too. The world is a strange place.
> Warm regards from Bolivia to everybody
>
Right back at you.
Chris
---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com
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