The shortest path between two Wikipedia articles is defined as the minimum number of clicks required to move from one article to another. This can be used to discover connections between topics that are completely unrelated.
For instance, if you are on the Wikipedia page of Microsoft, it would require just two clicks for you to reach the page of Saddam Hussein.
The route will be Microsoft –> 1990 –> Saddam Hussein
Six Degrees of Wikipedia is an online tool that will help you find the shortest route between any two pages on Wikipedia using links.
Unlike real world where distances remain constant if you move from A to B or from B to A, it’s not so in the case of Wikipedia. The distance going from Article A to Article B is not necessarily the same as from Article B to article A.
Stephen Dolan made this interesting tool using Wikipedia Dumps that contain all the Wikipedia stories in XML format minus the images and history. Thanks Catherine.
Related: Use Wikipedia More Effectively
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/determine-the-shortest-path-between-two-wikipedia-articles/3487/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Aargh! I was writing something similar to this using the wikipedia API. work has kept me busy :(
mine had an interesting feature avoiding large lists like “1990″ by employing a link-to-word ratio so those pages have lower weights, and running an A* pathfinding search on them.
Written by Anirudh on 06.03.08