Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#1

Post by HistoryInAction » Thu, May 26, 2011, 11:38 AM UTC

Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy
ryanelmquist.com

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#2

Post by hypest » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:00 PM UTC

That "Wikipedia Trivia" is really intriguing! Manually tested and verified it.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#3

Post by shawndumas » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:22 PM UTC

That's 'cause Philosophy covers it all:

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#4

Post by selectnull » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:29 PM UTC

And xkcd itself is "18 steps to philosophy"...

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#5

Post by camtarn » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:39 PM UTC

Hah. The hypothesis is false, but the script already has that covered via loop detection... nice :)

panhard

    Auverland
    Panhard

uh oh... found a loop

panhard -> auverland -> panhard.

So far the longest trail I've found, at 25 steps, was from 'ED209' via pottery, through minerals, states of matter, knowledge, finite sets, mathematics... that's one heck of a wikitrail.

[edit] Scratch that, 'Horst link' is longer via one step, going via transport, commerce, San Juan de Dios Market, Mexico, Romance languages, Precambrian, Chronology, etc...

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#6

Post by hamner » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:40 PM UTC

By extension, you also will always end up at ... Existence Sense Organism Biology Natural_science Science Knowledge Fact Information Finite_set Mathematics Quantity Property_(philosophy) Modern_philosophy

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#7

Post by lloeki » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:42 PM UTC

selectnull wrote: post #4

And xkcd itself is "18 steps to philosophy"...

So is "Potato" and "Caen", and the majority of other things I tried. For Godwin points, "Hitler" is only 14 steps.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#8

Post by thalur » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:43 PM UTC

selectnull wrote: post #4

And xkcd itself is "18 steps to philosophy"...

I don't think it works correctly though... it uses "Author" as the first link whereas the first link in the text of the article is "webcomic" ("Author" is in the summary pannel on the side)

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Xkcd

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#9

Post by moconnor » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:43 PM UTC

It seems to take a while to search; are you querying wikipedia each step instead of a DB snapshot?

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#10

Post by lloeki » Thu, May 26, 2011, 12:45 PM UTC

thalur wrote: post #8

selectnull wrote: post #4

And xkcd itself is "18 steps to philosophy"...

I don't think it works correctly though... it uses "Author" as the first link whereas the first link in the text of the article is "webcomic" ("Author" is in the summary pannel on the side) https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Xkcd

The same happens for cities or locations, where there is usually a "Coordinates" in the upper right corner. Still, I did it manually in text bodies, and you eventually end up to Science or Mathematics, which leads to Philosophy.