6 ms·

Erdős–Bacon number

48 points by eindiran 7y ago

ashton314 7y ago
It took me a while to understand xkcd #599[1]; now I'm wondering what the current lower bound on someone's Erdős–Bacon Number is today. Anyone know? [1]: https://www.xkcd.com/599/ https://www.xkcd.com/599/
- dandare 7y ago
  Can you ELI5 both? I don't get it.
  - twiceaday 7y ago
    To get the lowest Erdos number you have to co-author a paper with him but he is dead so that is no longer possible. Unless...
  - abhorrence 7y ago
    Someone's "Bacon" number is how many films you have to go through in order to go from that person to Kevin Bacon. For example Patrick Stewart's Bacon number is 2. Star Trek: First Contact -[James Cromwell]-> Beyond All Boundaries -> Kevin Bacon. Someone's Erdős number is the same concept, but applied to coauthorship on research papers. Someone's Erdős-Bacon number is the sum of those two numbers.
  - gibspaulding 7y ago
    https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/599:_Apocalypse https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/599:_Apocalypse
- selectodude 7y ago
  Well, Erdos is dead, so you'd have to be in a movie with one of the two people who have a EB number of 3, giving you an EB number of 5. Otherwise, if one of the people who have published a paper with Erdos were in a movie with Kevin Bacon, that would lower their number to two. Somebody born today couldn't do better than 5, and they'd have to move quickly. Kleitman is in his late 80s and Reznik is 66.
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    Someone born today could co-author a paper with anyone who co-authored a paper with Erdos, and also appear in a film with Kevin Bacon, giving them a EB number of 3.
  - IvyMike 7y ago
    Somebody films a movie today staring Kevin Bacon and anyone with an Erdős number of 1 and we get a new record holder, E-B number of 2.
chenhan 7y ago
When I read this, I immediately began thinking if there is someone I know who has been involved in both science/math and TV/movies and the name that popped up for me was Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan has Erdos-Bacon number of 6.
Syzygies 7y ago
Erdős–Bacon numbers got their start when Simon Singh (reference 1 archived) was having lunch with me, and I observed that mine was 4. He writes for a living, so he wrote a column. Oddly, I was long ago written out of this Wikipedia article. There is a reasonable ambiguity about Erdős numbers, as people do publish posthumously with him, based on collaborations while he was alive. There is also an ambiguity about Bacon numbers. One can take the spirit of the original dorm room bull sessions that started Bacon numbers, or one can take the idiosyncrasies as gospel of the web site that now reports Bacon numbers. For example, a mathematician can appear as themself in a documentary, and gain a Bacon number according to this web site. They defend this by observing that these mathematicians did experience film sets (so do caterers) but the reality is that it's too hard to clean the data. I've been interviewed multiple times for documentaries, and the experience bears no resemblance whatsoever to that of working on and acting in "A Beautiful Mind". The original intent was to count actors with credited speaking roles.
- cabacon 7y ago
  Yup. I have an Erdős number, but despite being a Bacon, no Bacon number to my great dismay.
- boulos 7y ago
  Thanks for the background! Why did you two choose to make it the sum of the two scores (so L1 distance) rather than L-inf/max? It seems to me that you'd want to have the minimum value be a 1, representing someone who co-authored a paper with Erdos and appeared in a film with Bacon. The sum will always be at least two though (whatever I guess), but that also (2,2) isn't that far away from the "origin" such that it feels wrong to call it 4 (and similarly 2,4 being 6 seems funny).
  - notrandom 7y ago
    I prefer the sum, as it describes the minimum-length path containing all participants. It seems like the intuitive expansion of the concept of the Erdös number.
- freepor 7y ago
whalesalad 7y ago
My favorite Erdős trivia is that he was an avid amphetamine user. Erdős’s friends worried about his drug use, and in 1979 Graham bet Erdős $500 that he couldn’t stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdős accepted, and went cold turkey for a complete month. Erdős’s comment at the end of the month was “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.” He then immediately started taking amphetamines again My man. https://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2.pdf https://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2...
- c3534l 7y ago
  "I'm not a drug addict, I just can't function without drugs. Totally different."
  - ta999999171 7y ago
    Some people have unfortunate brain chemistry/homeostasis, and are keen to adjust it. It's a real thing. Hard to separate from desiring the pleasure/illness, to be fair.
    - whalesalad 7y ago
      Spot on.
  - ramblerman 7y ago
    Going cold turkey to nothing for a month is not something a typical "addict" could do.
  - MrEldritch 7y ago
    I don't think this is fair. I have ADHD. It is not an exaggeration to say that I can't function without drugs - I have trouble doing literally any task that requires switching focus or making long-term plans (including complex, multi-step tasks like "put on pants, go outside, find a place to eat, and eat some food so you don't starve".) Specifically, I can't function without prescription amphetamines, in dosages substantially greater than Erdos was taking.
ejcx 7y ago
I’ve never heard of Erdos Bacon numbers. My university professor Dr Tjaden pioneered the Bacon Number and it was a pretty obscure claim to fame he had. I’m guessing his Erdos Bacon number was 3+1=4. He appeared in a documentary with Kevin Bacon about the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, and has a peer at the university with an Erdos of 3. What a world we live in!
tomc1985 7y ago
What is that double-accented o called and how is it pronounced?
- grzm 7y ago
  For pronunciation, one resource is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_phonology#Vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_phonology#Vowels That particular diacritic mark is a double accent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_acute_accent#Hungarian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_acute_accent#Hungarian > "In Hungarian, the double acute is thought of as the letter having both an umlaut and an acute accent"
- bb101 7y ago
  It's a long o-umlaut. Pronounced like "err" (thinking) or a stretched out version of "ea" from earth. Incidentally, Erdős in Hungarian means Forester.
HenryBemis 7y ago
If you like science podcasts, in one of the "Infinite Monkey Cage" episodes, I (believe) Stephen Fry was discussing this. Great podcast (BBC).
ColinWright 7y ago
If you count appearances on TV, I think I have a E-B number of 6, possibly 5. I'm actively working on getting a finite E-B-S number ...
donpott 7y ago
I was surprised not to see Kip Thorne there. He has been heavily involved with Hollywood for ages apart from being an accomplished scientist.

48 points by eindiran 7y ago

It took me a while to understand xkcd #599[1]; now I'm wondering what the current lower bound on someone's Erdős–Bacon Number is today. Anyone know? [1]: https://www.xkcd.com/599/ https://www.xkcd.com/599/

dandare 7y ago
Can you ELI5 both? I don't get it.
- twiceaday 7y ago
  To get the lowest Erdos number you have to co-author a paper with him but he is dead so that is no longer possible. Unless...
- abhorrence 7y ago
  Someone's "Bacon" number is how many films you have to go through in order to go from that person to Kevin Bacon. For example Patrick Stewart's Bacon number is 2. Star Trek: First Contact -[James Cromwell]-> Beyond All Boundaries -> Kevin Bacon. Someone's Erdős number is the same concept, but applied to coauthorship on research papers. Someone's Erdős-Bacon number is the sum of those two numbers.
- gibspaulding 7y ago
  https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/599:_Apocalypse https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/599:_Apocalypse
selectodude 7y ago
Well, Erdos is dead, so you'd have to be in a movie with one of the two people who have a EB number of 3, giving you an EB number of 5. Otherwise, if one of the people who have published a paper with Erdos were in a movie with Kevin Bacon, that would lower their number to two. Somebody born today couldn't do better than 5, and they'd have to move quickly. Kleitman is in his late 80s and Reznik is 66.
- ikeboy 7y ago
  Someone born today could co-author a paper with anyone who co-authored a paper with Erdos, and also appear in a film with Kevin Bacon, giving them a EB number of 3.
- IvyMike 7y ago
  Somebody films a movie today staring Kevin Bacon and anyone with an Erdős number of 1 and we get a new record holder, E-B number of 2.

chenhan 7y ago

When I read this, I immediately began thinking if there is someone I know who has been involved in both science/math and TV/movies and the name that popped up for me was Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan has Erdos-Bacon number of 6.

Syzygies 7y ago

Erdős–Bacon numbers got their start when Simon Singh (reference 1 archived) was having lunch with me, and I observed that mine was 4. He writes for a living, so he wrote a column. Oddly, I was long ago written out of this Wikipedia article. There is a reasonable ambiguity about Erdős numbers, as people do publish posthumously with him, based on collaborations while he was alive. There is also an ambiguity about Bacon numbers. One can take the spirit of the original dorm room bull sessions that started Bacon numbers, or one can take the idiosyncrasies as gospel of the web site that now reports Bacon numbers. For example, a mathematician can appear as themself in a documentary, and gain a Bacon number according to this web site. They defend this by observing that these mathematicians did experience film sets (so do caterers) but the reality is that it's too hard to clean the data. I've been interviewed multiple times for documentaries, and the experience bears no resemblance whatsoever to that of working on and acting in "A Beautiful Mind". The original intent was to count actors with credited speaking roles.

cabacon 7y ago
Yup. I have an Erdős number, but despite being a Bacon, no Bacon number to my great dismay.
boulos 7y ago
Thanks for the background! Why did you two choose to make it the sum of the two scores (so L1 distance) rather than L-inf/max? It seems to me that you'd want to have the minimum value be a 1, representing someone who co-authored a paper with Erdos and appeared in a film with Bacon. The sum will always be at least two though (whatever I guess), but that also (2,2) isn't that far away from the "origin" such that it feels wrong to call it 4 (and similarly 2,4 being 6 seems funny).
- notrandom 7y ago
  I prefer the sum, as it describes the minimum-length path containing all participants. It seems like the intuitive expansion of the concept of the Erdös number.
freepor 7y ago

whalesalad 7y ago

My favorite Erdős trivia is that he was an avid amphetamine user. Erdős’s friends worried about his drug use, and in 1979 Graham bet Erdős $500 that he couldn’t stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdős accepted, and went cold turkey for a complete month. Erdős’s comment at the end of the month was “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.” He then immediately started taking amphetamines again My man. https://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2.pdf https://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2...

c3534l 7y ago
"I'm not a drug addict, I just can't function without drugs. Totally different."
- ta999999171 7y ago
  Some people have unfortunate brain chemistry/homeostasis, and are keen to adjust it. It's a real thing. Hard to separate from desiring the pleasure/illness, to be fair.
  - whalesalad 7y ago
    Spot on.
- ramblerman 7y ago
  Going cold turkey to nothing for a month is not something a typical "addict" could do.
- MrEldritch 7y ago
  I don't think this is fair. I have ADHD. It is not an exaggeration to say that I can't function without drugs - I have trouble doing literally any task that requires switching focus or making long-term plans (including complex, multi-step tasks like "put on pants, go outside, find a place to eat, and eat some food so you don't starve".) Specifically, I can't function without prescription amphetamines, in dosages substantially greater than Erdos was taking.

ejcx 7y ago

I’ve never heard of Erdos Bacon numbers. My university professor Dr Tjaden pioneered the Bacon Number and it was a pretty obscure claim to fame he had. I’m guessing his Erdos Bacon number was 3+1=4. He appeared in a documentary with Kevin Bacon about the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, and has a peer at the university with an Erdos of 3. What a world we live in!

tomc1985 7y ago

What is that double-accented o called and how is it pronounced?

grzm 7y ago
For pronunciation, one resource is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_phonology#Vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_phonology#Vowels That particular diacritic mark is a double accent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_acute_accent#Hungarian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_acute_accent#Hungarian > "In Hungarian, the double acute is thought of as the letter having both an umlaut and an acute accent"
bb101 7y ago
It's a long o-umlaut. Pronounced like "err" (thinking) or a stretched out version of "ea" from earth. Incidentally, Erdős in Hungarian means Forester.

HenryBemis 7y ago

If you like science podcasts, in one of the "Infinite Monkey Cage" episodes, I (believe) Stephen Fry was discussing this. Great podcast (BBC).

ColinWright 7y ago

If you count appearances on TV, I think I have a E-B number of 6, possibly 5. I'm actively working on getting a finite E-B-S number ...

donpott 7y ago

I was surprised not to see Kip Thorne there. He has been heavily involved with Hollywood for ages apart from being an accomplished scientist.