Connections or random?

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Tom,

Either you are doing your usual thing..playing little fun games.. or you are hopelessly unaware of how daft your comments look.

Your new book had better not have any of those ideas in them. It would not bode well.


Phil

I'm hopelessly unaware of how daft my comments look.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Batman]

As I've pointed out, there were approx 800 people lodging in Dorset Street, so that has to be fed into the equation somehow. Added to that, we have to consider the extent to which the victims' tenure overlapped, for example. There's also the question of how the victims' ages might have influenced their peer groups, specifically with regard to those with whom they likely associated; after all, Kelly was in her mid-twenties, whilst many of the other victims were fully two decades older.

It's a complex, multi-faceted problem, for sure.

Seven degrees of separation. You can link anyone to anyone else in Whitechapel in 1988 in far less than seven moves. Two or three max.

It seems that even if one person stood still in one place that eventually given enough time they will meet someone who knows another victim or another victim will have been close by.

I still think its pretty obvious that JtR lived in Whitechapel due to geoprofiling. Probably smack in the middle of them all.

[Sam Flynn]

Seven degrees of separation. You can link anyone to anyone else in Whitechapel in 1988 in far less than seven moves. Two or three max.

The conditions that prevailed among the transient population of a London slum might not be as conducive to "seven degrees of separation" as the rather more stable social conditions we've enjoyed in recent years. Besides, "linking to" and "knowing each other" aren't the same thing, as I'm sure you realise. I can link myself to Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury in only two steps, but I don't know the guy.

I still think its pretty obvious that JtR lived in Whitechapel due to geoprofiling. Probably smack in the middle of them all.

I'd certainly agree with that, but it doesn't mean that he knew the victims, nor that the victims necessarily knew one another.

[MrBarnett]

I'm hopelessly unaware of how daft my comments look.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

You certainly are: