<p>Whoa, SilvaRua, who applied the poison ivy to your toothbrush this morning? Your hostility makes you look pretty silly.</p>
<p>In any case, get a grip. Gladwell’s book isn’t meant to be a scientific tract. But it does summarize about fifty years of social science research in what many people think is a remarkably engaging way. The idea about groups of 150 wasn’t introduced by Gladwell. It does, however, happen to be generally accepted by scholars who have forgotten more about social behavior than you will ever know. Being acquainted with the military, however admirable that may be, does not really give you any credibility against people who study group interactions as a full-time job.</p>
<p>The relevant type of group at Caltech, by the way, is the house, not the class. Most Techers would agree that the typical house fits the mold described by Gladwell in a fairly exact way.</p>
<p>Finally, though I don’t claim to know anything about military organization, I do know a little about human memory, and the average person cannot reliably remember 2000 name/face pairs (in addition to all the normal social acquaintances one has outside one’s job). Since an ability to recognize people and know their names (without those convenient uniform things) is key to the small-group dynamic that InquilineKea mentioned, your point about regiments can’t be right. They are, without a doubt, often quite successful organizations, but they simply don’t function in the “highly personal” way that entails everyone actually knowing almost everyone else.</p>