Degrees of freedom (mechanics) has only one degree of freedom because the positions of the cars behind the engine are constrained by the shape of the track. An automobile with highly stiff suspension can be considered to be a rigid body traveling on a plane (a flat, two-dimensional space). This body has three independent degrees of freedom consisting of two components of translation and one angle of rotation. Skidding or drifting is a good example of an automobile's three independent degrees of freedom. The position and orientation of a rigid body in space is defined by three components of translation and three components of
Six Degrees patent Zynga and Tribe.net for $700,000 at an auction in 2003. When explaining his reasoning for purchasing the Six Degrees patent, Hoffman stated, "Right now you're hearing a lot of spurious patent threats (...) And that's why I moved quickly to get a patent that was foundational." He also commented on other entrepreneurs' views of social networking: "The general attitude among entrepreneurial people is that they think that they were first and that there is no history to what they are doing (...) Both Mark and I had tracked six degrees as an intellectual precursor to our own businesses." Andrew Katz