While today’s general purpose manipulators contain six degrees of freedom, effective reduction in degrees of freedom occurs from singularity regions and from workspace obstacles. It is argued that the future general purpose manipulators will contain seven degrees of freedom, and that one particular kinematic design is superior to other possible 7 degree of freedom kinematic designs. Considerati...

It is believed that almost any pair of people in the world can be connected to one another by a short chain of intermediate acquaintances, of typical length about six. This phenomenon, colloquially referred to as the “six degrees of separation”, has been the subject of considerable interest within the physics community in recent years.

In this commentary on Anderson and Morzycki’s article ‘Degrees as kinds’, I raise some issues about the interchangeability of concrete (or Davidsonian) states (in the sense of Maienborn 2007) and tropes (particularized properties, according to Moltmann 2009), as well as the category of concrete states as such. I will also raise some issues for Anderson and Morzycki’s use of kinds of concrete st...

It is believed that almost any pair of people in the world can be connected to one another by a short chain of intermediate acquaintances, of typical length about six. This phenomenon, colloquially referred to as the " six degrees of separation, " has been the subject of considerable recent interest within the physics community. This paper provides a short review of the topic.