Tuesday, January 01, 2008

How many people is it possible to know?

This is the great question I've been wondering -- how many people can a person know. I figure it's possible to know every active pro baseball player, all the hall of famers, and many of the minor leaguers.
Let's suppose you know all the players on the 40 man roster -- that 1200 people (30 teams by 40 players). That seems like a reasonable number of people to know. Let's add a couple of thousand who are are former players -- let's say another 1ooo. And let's say you keep up with the draft and college, so you know another 1000 that way. So all told you know about 3000 players.

How many more beyond that can you know? Where does the limit of memory come into play?

The number of technologists and quants in NYC is finite, but is it knowable? What would be the most efficient way to learn about all these people?