The world is full of similar people who are not connected by blood ties. How is it possible that two people, born and raised in different parts of the world, look like two peas in a pod? Is there a clear scientific explanation for this phenomenon?
People who are similar to each other and are not relatives - is this possible? It turns out yes. A French photographer once had a wonderful idea. He found and captured on film similar people who were not related by any blood ties. His name is Francois Brunelle. It took him about twelve years to realize his idea. The photographer tracked people with eerily similar features around the world and helped them find their doppelgängers. Some photos of similar people from the work of Francois Brunelle are presented in this article. Carefully study the proposed images and compare how many similarities there are between complete strangers who are not related by blood.
Every person in this world has 7 doubles
They say that every person in this world has at least seven very similar people. One can easily agree that this assumption is quite frightening and unnatural. It is hardly possible to find two exact copies on our planet, identical as two drops of water. Even blood twins have features that, at least slightly, make it possible for those around them to distinguish them, not to mention a stranger who lives on the other side of the Earth.
Not the same, but, nevertheless, incredibly similar people still exist, and not as rarely as it might seem. They live in different cities, countries, continents, and lead a completely different way of life. They do not have common genes, they differ in language and culture, but their similarity really cannot be denied.
Same appearance - same character?
We all know that there are similar people. Is this purely a superficial resemblance? Can a person and his counterpart from another country have the same character traits and type of activity? It would be strange and surprising at the same time. In fact, it happens in different ways. For example, there once lived in Rome an emperor named Maximin (early 4th century AD), and so, looking at his bust, you can see in his features the dictator from the 20th century, familiar to everyone - Adolf Hitler. These similar people not only had the same facial features, but both were dictators in their time, and both died ignominiously.
This question is quite difficult to answer, modern science There are no exact answers, there are only guesses. One of the most likely versions is the one that explains the external resemblance completely strangers identical genetic structure. For a reason that is unclear to date, similar people have exactly the same DNA.
These twins are also called biogenic. This means that their genetic material is the same, but their biological parents are different. It happens that people can be similar and live in different places at the same time and be the same age. Some may be separated by years, centuries, or even entire millennia. Natural diversity, it turns out, is not limitless, there are billions of people in the world, and there is always a chance of a random coincidence of genetic sets.
Secret relationship
Scientists believe it is quite possible that similar people are very, very distant relatives. By resorting to basic mathematical analysis, one can make the following calculations: the average citizen, after eight generations, will be the descendant of 256 relatives who, one way or another, are related by blood ties. If we imagine that 40, 50 or more generations have passed, the relatives will number in the millions. And no one knows where the genetic material will coincide and in what generation.
In card jargon, genes are shuffled like cards in a deck, but at a certain moment the same “hands” appear with minimal probability. Then doubles are born, people who are as similar to each other as two peas in a pod. Perhaps nature has its own plans for this, its own secret goals.
Search for doubles on the Internet
Today on the World Wide Web there are many sites with which you can find a photo exact copy yourself among show business stars, great emperors and historically significant leaders. They are also looking for their doubles among the most ordinary people of their different cities and states. You just need to upload your photo in a certain format, and after a while the search engines will be able to find for you a couple of twins, or at least people who will be very similar to you.
Such sites are quite popular, because it is actually interesting to know, and even more so to see, your double. It's like meeting yourself in parallel world. Before the advent of the Internet, this was almost impossible to do, but now there are a lot of active search opportunities, and why not take advantage of them?
Miracles, and that's all
Doppelgangers are a phenomenon that is interesting in itself. People are more or less accustomed to the similarity of blood twins and granddaughters and their great-grandmothers, but to meet a person who is exactly like another person who is not a relative, and even lives thousands of kilometers away, this is more interesting.
Who knows, maybe in the future scientists will figure out how to use this quirk of nature. It is likely that the similarity of genomes can open up incredible prospects in such a field of medicine as transplantology. As biologists assure, the chance of an exact match of genetic sets infinitely approaches zero. However, partial copying of genes is quite normal, which proves that all of humanity is one big family.
Recently, American scientists were able to explain where similar people come from in the world, and in particular, this concerns why the Chinese are so similar to each other. It turned out that the more isolated a certain ethnic group develops, the more similar its representatives become.
Michael Sheehan, who is an assistant professor of neurobiology at Cornell University, says that the set of genes that are directly responsible for appearance man, is a kind of deck of cards in the hands of nature, and regardless of how it is shuffled, a combination that has already been encountered before periodically appears.
Why is this happening?
Scientists have determined that similar people appear because a certain number of genes are associated with appearance much more than with any other areas of human anatomy. Of course, scientists have not yet been able to determine which specific genes are responsible for the width of the nose, the shape of the face and ears, as well as other features of appearance. But one fact remains clear - if people who are not relatives to each other, but have an external similarity. They will also be similar to each other at the genetic level, and the genes responsible for a person’s appearance are an excellent illustration of this.
An interesting fact is that human faces differ much more from each other compared to body parts such as feet or hands. Most likely, in the process of evolution it was made separate accent on detailing human faces so that members of a certain family can easily be distinguished from others.
Groups
In the process of evolution, several main ethnic groups have formed, in which similar people are found. The largest such groups are the Chinese and Hindi, and at the same time, accordingly, the maximum chance of meeting your double is directly within a certain ethnic group. In other words, it is virtually impossible for a Chinese person to meet someone incredibly similar to himself among African Americans. It is worth noting the fact that within the Asian group there can be a huge number of doubles, and similar people are found here much more often than anywhere else.
Such identity in certain cases reaches a level where the similarity is not only external, but also internal, since an almost identical set of genes can be present even in people who are not closely or distantly related.
As a rule, people who are similar to each other and have the same nationality are distinguished by a similar set of genes, since in isolated ethnic groups all kinds of infusions from even neighboring groups were minimized.
How many doubles can there be?
Nature periodically creates copies of humans, but academic science cannot reliably say why they appear, and only guesswork remains. Of course, the most common version today is the version described above, which says that people who are similar to each other have an identical genetic structure. For a currently unknown reason, several “versions” of a person appear, and yet they all have almost identical DNA. In scientific circles, such twins are usually called biogenic, since, despite the fact that they have different biological parents, they differ in similar genes.
It often happens that in nature a huge number of identical people appear in short periods of time, and incidents also occur when these intervals stretch for hundreds or even thousands of years. That is why you should not be surprised when you see a double of some famous classic or political figure on the street.
Mathematical calculation
Mathematicians also decided to take up this issue and contribute to the investigation of why people are similar to each other. In particular, the theory of probability was used, according to which the chances of a random coincidence of sets of genes are far from zero, because there are several billion people, and this number is only growing.
Some scientists say that the phenomenon of the emergence of such doubles is caused by the so-called “secret relationship.” Even if you use the standard one, you can understand that any person after 8 generations is a descendant of 256 relatives related to each other by blood. Thus, if we talk not about 8, but, for example, about 30 generations, then this will be a million people, and all these closely related ties are based on the transfer of genetic material. Due to this, to some extent, all people in a certain ethnic category are related to some extent.
Doubles of famous people
Interesting examples of what very similar people are like can be found in our country. For example, while Alla Pugacheva and Philip Kirkorov were spouses, the Diva said that she liked Nemtsov, since he was very similar to her husband. After that, many people really took a closer look at them and realized that they had the same ears, eyes, nose, and both at that time were curly and had a very cheerful character, but at the same time they had no even approximate relationship.
Historical counterparts
There are also doubles that are extremely far apart in time. For example, at the end of the 3rd century in Rome, the ruler was Emperor Maximin, who was an almost perfect double of Adolf Hitler, and at the same time remained in history as an extremely tough dictator. His death was as inglorious as that of a distant descendant.
The busts of Thebes Montuehmet (the ruler of ancient Egyptian Thebes) and Mao Zedong are very similar, despite the fact that the ruler of Thebes lived more than 700 years BC.
Makeup
Probably every resident or guest of the capital paid attention to the fact that on Red Square you can almost always meet doubles of Lenin, Stalin and a huge number of other famous personalities who earn extra money by taking pictures with passers-by. Also, similar doubles can be found in a variety of theatrical performances.
In fact, it often happens that similarities are present only in racial and anthropological types, as well as external design and facial proportions. If such people are undressed and the makeup is completely washed off, then the similarity will either completely disappear or will no longer be so obvious, which is quite important. Of course, quite often various theater troupes prefer to hire real doubles into their cast, rather than just made-up personalities, as this allows them to make the performance truly unique.
How to find your double?
In fact, in the era information development there is nothing complicated about it. Outwardly similar people are quite often found on the Internet, and you can often see such photographs in the news, on some websites or in various in social networks. There are already a huge number of precedents when people found their doubles on the Internet and posted photos for comparison.
There are even specialized sites through which similar people in the world can be found based on photographs. Some provide the opportunity to find your own copy only among the stars, or while others expand the possibilities to the point that you can find your own double even among ordinary people from other countries. On such resources, it is quite enough to simply upload your own photo in a certain format, and then after a few days you will receive one or even several photos of people who are very similar to you. If you wish, you can find similar ones that interest you, rather than looking for your own double.
Similarities between spouses
Many people often notice that couples who live together for a long time begin to resemble each other, and some even become so similar that they are then perceived as brother and sister. First of all, many try to explain why people are similar in in this case, by the fact that quite often we ourselves choose partners who are similar to us to a certain extent, but besides this, even over time they begin to become similar.
In the process of conducting research, scientists determined that visual similarity is quite important factor to attract two people to each other. In particular, it was determined that two similar people of the opposite sex are most often attracted, especially if they have similar facial features.
What explains this?
This is explained by the innate tendency that every person seeks someone who can be trusted and whom he “knows”. When we literally see ourselves as a reflection of ourselves in someone, we begin to automatically associate the person with those thoughts.
Even more interesting is the fact that people who are visually similar to each other are prone to long-term relationships, they can trust each other as much as possible and enjoy carefree cohabitation. According to psychologists from the University of Michigan, older couples who have lived together for decades also begin to look alike over time because people who have a close bond often unconsciously imitate the different facial expressions and gestures of their loved ones.
Besides everything else, it cannot be said that happy couples often differ in similar physical characteristics.
Genetics plays the most important role in this case, since people with different genetic indicators begin to attract each other much more, compared to people who have a similar genetic code.
Even ordinary people It is often noticed, for example, that many women are often interested in men who resemble their fathers - this is a subconscious act of selection. Fathers represent to young girls, and this model subsequently subconsciously postponed and forms the further choice of the spouse already adult woman. This is precisely one of the reasons why quite often couples are similar to each other.
People who belong to the same religion, race, age and social class are always more likely to develop truly strong and lasting relationships. Subconsciously, they are pushed towards each other by the fact that for them culture, traditions and food habits are not any obstacle, but are only another similar feature.
If people live together for a long time, then they are more likely to eventually adapt to their partner, and these life experiences, according to scientists, are ultimately reflected in facial features. But no one has been able to reliably say why people are similar to each other.
It sometimes happens that in the Russian outback, a girl living in a village looks like, for example, Sophie Marceau. And the guy from the next door is, well, the spitting image of Brad Pete! Why are people similar in appearance to each other, having different parents and sometimes living in different countries? We will try to answer this rather specific question in this article.
Some restrictions
The thing is that Mother Nature does not have as many forms and materials for creating human images as it might seem at first glance. We all know that there are only a few human races and people within one of them often have quite similar physiognomic features. So, the Chinese, for example, especially from a European point of view, look very similar to each other. Interestingly, the “black race” also perceives all “whites” as similar to each other.
Genera and genes
According to scientists, each race contains from 400 to 600 different genera, distinguished genetically. So there is not too much variation within race and gender either, considering total population planet Earth. These reasons are considered quite objective in the matter of the similarity of people who are not relatives.
Relatives and spouses
Relatives, of course, can be similar to each other even with a gap of two or three generations. Interestingly, spouses who have lived together for many years also become similar friend on a friend.
Optical illusion
Often, the similarity of people is determined by facial expressions, gestures, and behavioral characteristics. So, you can copy almost any inhabitant of the Earth. This is what parodists of famous personalities use, for example.
It is believed that a long-term happy marriage makes people similar to each other. These similarities are noticeable in the character and appearance. Moreover, this opinion was not born today. Our ancestors also believed that “husband and wife are one Satan.” Psychologists at the University of Michigan decided to find out the true reasons for the emergence of such rumors.
Reasons for external similarity
Scientists analyzed photographs of several dozen couples. All photographs were taken in different time throughout married life. Indeed, they were found external signs similarities that appeared over time. Scientists explain this by the fact that people initially choose life partners who are similar to them in appearance.
Examples of many racially mixed marriages refute this assumption. If it were true, mestizo children would not appear, there would be no mulattoes. External differences do not prevent couples living happily in which people with different colors skin and eye shape. Even if they really wanted to become like each other in old age, they will not succeed.
Behavioral similarity
Analyzing the behavior of happy spouses, psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Joseph Heinrich, discovered regular signs that he called the “law of mirroring.” He argues that all individuals, entering a new society, begin to copy the behavior that is accepted there. This is how the newcomer demonstrates his identity to the people who make up society. He gives a signal: “I belong to you, I am disposed towards you, I am the same as you.”
This law was in effect even in the primitive system. And today he helps to join a new work team or a fashionable party. This makes it easier to find like-minded people and be accepted. This applies not only verbal communication. The facial expressions, gestures and postures of the interlocutors are involuntarily copied. And the higher the level of people’s affection for each other, the more clearly the “law of mirroring” manifests itself. The scientist even proved that the skill of subconscious copying is inherent in the human brain. He considered it one of the most important skills that allow human society to develop. When creating a couple, people also tend to copy each other's behavior in order to make a better impression on their partner. As a result, this habit leads to long-term and comfortable relationships.
Reverse side of the mirror
Copying has a beneficial effect on marital relations in the initial stage. By adopting each other's hobbies and interests, spouses become similar. They are interested in spending time together. There's a lot to talk about. Disagreements disappear. People learn to smooth out rough edges. If for some reason this does not happen, the marriage breaks up.
By adapting to each other, the husband and wife want to correspond to their partner’s ideas about the ideal spouse in moral, spiritual and everyday life. The degree of mirroring in different couples is different. The woman does not always adapt to the man, as is commonly believed. But in any case, similarity of interests and similarity of thoughts play in favor of the longevity of the relationship.
However, there is a point where absolute similarity leads to loss of interest. By adapting to each other, spouses can lose their own individuality. Among the representatives of couples who have lived together for 10–15 years, there are many who perceive their partner as a brother or sister.
This significantly reduces sexual desire. To prevent a complete disappearance of passion in a relationship, it is important to maintain sexual relations in a couple. To do this, you need not only to be able to “mirror” your partner, but also to show your individuality.
Harmony in relationships
People who have lived together for 15–20 years know each other very well. Over time, such couples go through many life situations. Partners get to know each other from different sides. Anticipating each other's thoughts, people intuitively choose a line of behavior based on the expected reaction of their partner. And here it all depends on the desire to be together. The larger it is, the more correctly the methods and options of communication are chosen. All experiments conducted showed the similarity of thinking of partners who have lived together for many years. From this we can conclude that in happy marriage the psychological and behavioral similarity of spouses over time is inevitable.