September 12, 2009
The Erdős-Bacon number quantifies how close a person is professionally to both Kevin Bacon AND Paul Erdős. If you're like me you might be thinking "Who even has a defined number?" and if so you're not appreciating the size of the network effect. It's not just professional nerds like Brian Greene or Carl Sagan but also professional actors-who-are-also-nerds like Danica McKellar and Natalie Portman.
I post this because it's interesting but also I know a lot of you nerds out there and I bet none of you have looked up whether you have a defined Erdős number. Surely someone in this group was an author with an author with an author.....
I have a Bacon number of 5.
I have an Erdos number of 7.
I have an Erdos-Bacon number of 13.
Do I win another DVD?
Correction: I have an Erdos-Bacon number of at least 13. It could be lower, if I were to invest more effort in searching.
Correction 2: Upon further exploration, I have a Bacon number of 4. Now I have an Erdos-Bacon number of at least 12.
Correction 3: I cannot add. Also, upon further exploration, I have a Bacon number of 3. Now I have a (correctly summed) Erdos-Bacon number of at least 10.
Though all of this stretches the rules a bit. Is it "film", or "acting". And, authoring a journal article, or book?
Kevin Bacon himself has said that it doesn't count if you're just in an elevator with him or something, if that's what you mean.
The rules for the combined Erdos-Bacon number are usually relaxed slightly if the wikipedia examples are to be believed. One of the scientists with a low number gets his Baconness because he was a consultant on Good Will Hunting and appeared as an extra in a scene. Mayam Bialik gets her number through a collaboration on a book chapter. Therefore, I say javelina has a defined E/B number, which is even more exciting that just finding a friend of mine with an Erdos number.
I would like to hear the real chains that connect you to both of them.
okay, here goes:
The Erdos-Bacon number of The Javelina.
Bacon: [2 steps] Dan O'Connor [improv class; +1 step] {javelina} -- Dan was instructor for an improv class I took last year. 3 steps of Bacon.
Erdos: [3 steps] John Archibald Wheeler [book; +1 step] Kip S. Thorne [journal article; +1 step] David H. Reitze [journal article; +1 step] Mike Downer [journal articles; +1 step] Javelina. 7 Steps of Erdos.
Thus, Javelina has a Bacon-Erdos number of 10.
I win a prize, right?
This thread has caused me to discover something horrible
I'm pretty sure the 2010 Footloose is based on the musical, which is based on the movie. It's kinda like the (newer) Producers movie, which was a travesty that never should have happened.
The Kevin Bacon Boardgame required actors/actresses in movies for the steps to count, but the original rules presented on the Jon Stewart Show on MTV allowed any connection (producers, directors, key grips, etc).
The Javelina is Radtastic.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but was surprised to see that I had an E# (5), and under very relaxed rules, have a B# = 3.
So, E-B# = 8.
so no one else has an Erdos or Bacon number?
I have no idea how to figure out if I have an Erdos number, but I'm guessing no to both.
Mr. Bun doesn't have a Bacon number? Perhaps he and Reid have some combo-deal going on.
calculate: Erdős number or Bacon number
Well look at that, soku and I have Erdos number of 7 thanks to RRK. Congratulations to us. However, I've never been in a movie so I think that rules me out of having a Bacon number.
I suspect that zieglerfe might have the best chance out of anyone since his work as an on screen extra in Powder (and Tin Cup) gives him a Bacon number of 2. However, I can't decipher his publication history so I can't determine if he has a defined E-B number.
Unless mrbun knows a better connection, I can't find anything better than a Bacon number of 3 for him (through lots of people). (Using, of course, the rules that being a credited PA on a movie is enough to start the chain).
I'm friends with someone who apparently has B#=1. Does that make me B#=2? No idea about E#, though. My best bet would be Parkin or through Erskine somehow.
I have a Greater Bacon Number of 4:
Flip Kromer was on It's Academic with Mac McGarry;
It's Academic (the longest-running Quiz Show program in history) was spun off to a NYC-area network, where it was hosted by Art James.
Art James appeared as a game show host in the film Mallrats, which also featured Michael Rooker, who was in JFK with the Bacon.
Art James ALSO appeared in .... THE STAR WARS MOTHERFUCKING CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!!!! .... with James Earl Jones, magic 7, Bacon
My friend Jon Michael McCarron has a Bacon Number of 4:
Jon Michael McCarron was in Pizza Runners (1996; totally ripped off by "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place") with Robert Daniel Phelps (I), who was in Stick It in Detroit (2008) with Manuel Cabral (I), who was in Life/Drawing (2001) with Mark Ruffalo, who was in In the Cut (2003) with Kevin Bacon. He doesn't have an Erdos number, though.
My sister has a Bacon Number of 3. She was an extra in Varsity Blues with Jon Voight, who was in Enemy of the State with Arthur J. Nascarella, who was in In the Cut with Kevin Bacon. Again, though, no defined Erdos number. Oh, except apparently she had an internal Motorola paper, so possibly.
I guess I have a Bacon Number of 3 with slightly relaxed rules.
I was in several community theater productions choreographed by Sandra Brewer, who was a dancer in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) with Roddy McDowall, who was in The Big Picture (1989) with Kevin Bacon.
But I never published, and can't find connections for people I'd be tenuously connected to for Erdos, so looks like no B-E number for me.
I have never worked with a mathematician, and I can't think of anyone I have worked with who has worked with a mathematician. Trying to figure out my Erdos number was too trying.
I think I may have a Bacon number of 5, because I was on a local TV news show for some science fair, and the newscaster was in a movie.... I'm loving the fact that the chain goes through Clint Howard.
I am late to the game and have only tenuous claims to either a Bacon or Erdos number (this is the DC variant, where you don't actually have to have worked with someone to claim to know lots about them and feel that you are close enough to network/leverage their connections ;-), but I wanted to play anyway.
Bacon-3: friends from college with one brian tjaden, whose brother brett developed the Oracle of Bacon linked above, and (I believe, unless my imagination has run wild over the years) met the man as a result. Bacon-4: my former roommate was an acting-friend/classmate in Chicago with Tyler Mane, who is a Bacon-2.
Erdos-4: I took calc3 with David Cox, who is an Erdos-3. He is a very nice man and by all accounts a very good mathemetician, but my lasting memory of him is that he totaled the points on my exams wrong. Twice. That I know of. (Once he forgot to carry a 1, and another time he completely left off a 20-pt answer because he didn't turn the page. I still harbor suspicions about my final exam grade.)
Your latter story is completely consistent with the claim that he is a well-regarded mathematician.
Bolsters it, in fact.
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My authorship is limited to psychology, but I've been in an anti-drug commercial with Greg Louganis (BN=3, from which I was cut), a TV special ("Sex in the '80s") with Geraldo Rivera (BN=3, from which only my voice and left foot appear), and was an extra in Alien Nation (BN=3, I made it in!).
I just need someone with a low Erdos # to write a paper with me about stats and perception, or perhaps how stochatic processes better predict stranger anxiety.
posted by TheWestIsTheBest at 08:56PM CST on September 12