Some people require for the path for Erdös numbers that each link be a paper published in a refereed mathematical journal, while other only require that it be any academic journal. If you have no path to Bacon or Erdös, your number is not zero. Only Bacon and Erdös have numbers of zero. Your number is infinity or you have no number.
I was given an award at a ceremony by Penn Jillette, so my Bacon number is 3
My father had a Bacon number of 3. He appeared as an extra with Alan Alda in Sweet Liberty (in a freeze frame right next to him). I was in home movies with my mother (also an extra in the film) and him, so my Bacon number is 4.
I doubt I have an Erdos number.
There is a youtube video that shows the back of my head at a concert. On the stage was… never mind.
I’ve never been in movie, but if you count TV, then I have a Bacon number of 3 (through the History Channel series Clash of the Gods). If you count stage appearances, I have a Bacon number of 4 (through Erland van Lidthe de Jeude).
I determined my Erdos number several years ago, but can’t recall it. It’s fairly low, about 5 or so, and I can trace it through two paths.
So close! I was invited to a play once by Joe Flaherty, and met him backstage after. That would give me a Bacon number no larger than three (Flaherty was in 1941 with John Belushi, who was in Animal House with Kevin Bacon).
I have never published in any sort of math journal, but I have co-authored an engineering book and written some mathematical articles about gambling in a national magazine and had a couple of relatively famous Mathematician/gamblers review them before publication. I didn’t bother to check their Erdos numbers, because this really doesn’t count.
Does performing Black Sabbath at Karaoke or in a band count for a Sabbath number?
I believe you have to be in a public performance with someone bacon adjacent to receive a bacon number, not just meet a bacon inductee.
I just checked, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my Erdos number is 5, If I had taken the time to publish my Disseration I could have got it down to 3 (my former advisor has a two) but I got too busy working for the feds.
You never published anything with your advisor?
- I was in a play with Amber Todd.
- Amber was in Son Of The Mask with Jamie Kennedy.
- Jamie was in Scream 3 with Neve Campbell.
- Neve was in Wild Things with Kevin Bacon.
As a background extra, I was in a scene with Kevin Costner, who was in the movie JFK, with Kevin Bacon. That gives me a Bacon number of 2.
I have no Erdos number.
Here’s a website that allows you to calculate the number of links between many actors:
I was once in a band who supported Mari Wilson at a gig.
One of her backing singers has a KB number of 3.
Does that count ?
There’s doesn’t appear to be a formal, written definition of Bacon number, but the consensus appears to be an acting credit is required. This would eliminate plays, video tapes of non-theatrical events, being an extra, or other non-credited activities. It might break down for non-credited performances in theatrical releases.
The Bacon number calculator also doesn’t include made for TV movies, but with streaming releases that’s going to be harder to justify.
My particular acting credit is as part of an ensemble - that is, the ensemble name is credited rather than each of us individually. And I am quite visible and audible on screen at various points. Does that count?
In math you don’t usually. I never published anything with my advisor and no student of mine has ever published anything with me. Their work was theirs. Incidentally, Erdos had only 4 students.
That’s actually not surprising, for the same reason that he had so many collaborators: He was a nomadic mathematician, who never stayed in any place for long. Good for networking with lots of people, not so good for advising a student.
For one semester when I was a grad student in the 70s, I was a teaching assistant for a prof with an Erdos number of 1.
I thought that prof was a real p.o.s. and never collaborated on anything with him. Later events showed my opinion to be quite accurate.
Except for a short time at the beginning of his career, Erdös didn’t teach at a university. He just moved from campus to campus. He was paid to give lectures at each campus and was given a place to stay, food to eat, his laundry done, etc. He was constantly suggesting new mathematical hypotheses, asking other mathematicians to help him prove them, and sometimes offering a prize for a proof. He published 1,525 mathematical papers with a total of 511 other mathematicians during his lifetime. At some point someone suggested that it was possible to define a number called the Erdös number which gave the minimal number of mathematical papers that connected someone with Erdös.
Actually, he did spend an entire semester in Urbana, IL, in the spring of 1966, accompanied by his mother. They stayed in guest rooms at the student union. That was when he met my 4 month old daughter and asked my wife if that was a boss epsilon (i.e. female) or a slave epsilon.
Many of use would gather for coffee at the union around 3 every afternoon and Mrs. Erdos would occasionally join us. One day, she started by asking us if we knew her son Paul (or Pál) and when we assured we did, she said, “I want you to know that he is a very fine mathematician.” We assured her we knew that too.