I’m starting to get into my research (graph algorithms) and was discussing with my advisor small-world graphs. Naturally, Erdos numbers came up, and she mentioned an Erdos number of 3. One of my math profs has a 2 and there’s a person in the department with a 1, though I’m not sure if they’re in discrete mathematics or not.
So, what’s your Erdos Number? Are there any Erdos numbers of 1 on the SDMB (and if so do you want to publish? :D)?
I looked this up once – I had to contact a group that had this stuff tabulated and wait for a reply – but I don’t recall my number. Unfortunately, it’s not like your Kevin Bacon number. My Erdos number is finite, but not low – I have papers in common with at least two others who have a huge number of connections, so I’m likely connected through more than one path.
He presented a paper at the university I attended, several years after I graduated. And one of the professors was working on a paper with him, but I never took one of his classes. And I’m guessing that means my Erdos number approaches infinity.
Mine is 4.
One of my graduate committee members has an Erdos number of 3. As I have published a (non-mathematical) paper with him, my Erdos number is 4.
Here’s an easy way to compute an Erdos number: http://www.ams.org/msnmain/cgd/index.html
That site requires some sort of password, Terminus Est.
Oh, sorry. I must have been given access based on my Cornell IP.
3
(And I’m in CS, not Math.)
I thought the thread title referred to Irv Erdos.
The only way I’d have an Erdos # is if it cross-referenced with the IMDB.
Uh…
So, just what is an Erdos number?
I’ve been wondering the same thing. Maybe it’s like your rank in the stonecutters?
Paul Erdos was a renouned mathematician and the author of many papers in the field. The Erdos Number is similar to the Kevin Bacon number: if you coauthored a paper with Erdos, your number is 1. If you coauthored a paper with someone with an Erdos number of 1, your number is 2, etc.
The most famous non-mathemetician with an Erdos number of 1 is Hank Aaron. 
Can Erdos numbers be by inheritance? If so, I have an Erdos number of 1 from my maternal grandfather, along with some hilarious Erdos anecdotes (“I have just proofed a sheorem… what sheorem have you just proofed?”)
Ah. Thanks. Mine is infinite then.
The Erdos Number Project
I haven’t ever published anything, but I have taken classes from at least one guy with Erdos number 1.
My Erdos number is 4.
Actually, I’ve heard that Erdos (don’t know how to write the appropriate diacritic) numbers are computed only drawing from papers published by two authors. For example, if you publish a paper with someone whose Erdos number is n, you’ll get an Erdos number of n+1 if you and this person are the only authors, but if there are three or more authors, this paper will not count towards your Erdos number. There are also extended Erdos numbers which, as you’d expect, are computed taking into account any joint paper with other authors, regardless of their number.
I personally might have a finite Erdos number, but I don’t know what it is, and it is probably rather high anyway. “High” is relative: it is estimated that a very large majority of people who have a finite Erdos number actually have it smaller than 15.
This said, can someone tell me what paper Hank Aaron published jointly with Paul Erdos? And maybe send me a link to it, if it is possible?
It’s generally a joke…at an event (I think it was at Emory University, IIRC), Paul Erdos and Henry Aaron signed the same baseball, so you could say they “co-published” and thus Aaron has an Erdos number of 1.
severus writes:
> Actually, I’ve heard that Erdos (don’t know how to write the appropriate
> diacritic) numbers are computed only drawing from papers published by two
> authors.
I’ve never heard that before. Every description of how the Erdos number works I’ve heard up to now says that you can connect via any co-authored paper, regardless of the number of co-authors. I just checked the only two books I own that might speak to this issue, the two biographies of Erdos (yes, there are two biographies of Erdos), and they both say that any co-authored paper is O.K., regardless of the number of co-authors.
> “High” is relative: it is estimated that a very large majority of people who have
> a finite Erdos number actually have it smaller than 15.
Indeed, one of the biographies claims that it’s rare to have a (finite) Erdos number over 7.
So exactly what makes this Erdos fellow so important?