Erdős–Bacon number

A person's Erdős–Bacon number is the sum of one's Erdős number—which measures the "collaborative distance" in authoring academic papers between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős—and one's Bacon number—which represents the number of links, through roles in films, by which the person is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon.[1][2] The lower the number, the closer a person is to Erdős and Bacon, which reflects a small world phenomenon in academia and entertainment.[3]

To have a defined Erdős–Bacon number, it is necessary to have both appeared in a film and co-authored an academic paper, although this in and of itself is not sufficient.

An extended definition named Erdős–Bacon-Sabbath includes the Sabbath number, an equivalent to Bacon number that connects musicians to the heavy metal band Black Sabbath.[4] [5]

Scientists

Mathematician Daniel Kleitman has an Erdős–Bacon number of 3. He co-authored papers with Erdős and has a Bacon number of 2 via Minnie Driver in Good Will Hunting.[6]

Mathematician Bruce Reznick also has an Erdős–Bacon number of 3 which puts him in a tie for the lead.[7]

Physicist Richard Feynman has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6. He has an Erdős number of 3, and a Bacon number of 3, having appeared in the film Anti-Clock alongside Tony Tang.[8]

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6: his Bacon number of 2 (via his appearance alongside John Cleese in Monty Python Live (Mostly) who acted alongside Kevin Bacon in The Big Picture) is lower than his Erdős number of 4.[9]

Actors

Danica McKellar, who played Winnie Cooper in The Wonder Years, has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6, having coauthored a mathematics paper published while an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her paper gives her an Erdős number of 4, and she has a Bacon number of 2, having worked with Margaret Easley.[2]

Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman has an Erdős–Bacon number of 7.[10] She collaborated (using her birth name, Natalie Hershlag) with Abigail A. Baird,[11] who has a collaboration path[12][13][14] leading to Joseph Gillis, who has an Erdős number of 1.[15] Portman appeared in A Powerful Noise Live (2009) with Sarah Michelle Gellar, who appeared in The Air I Breathe (2007) with Bacon, giving Portman a Bacon number of 2 and an Erdős number of 5.

British actor Colin Firth has an Erdős–Bacon number of 7. Firth is credited as co-author of a neuroscience paper, "Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults",[16] after he suggested on BBC Radio 4 that such a study could be done.[17] Another author of that paper, Geraint Rees, has an Erdős number of 5,[18][19] which gives Firth an Erdős number of 6. Firth's Bacon number of 1 is due to his appearance in Where the Truth Lies.[20]

Kristen Stewart has an Erdős–Bacon number of 7; she is credited as a co-author on an artificial intelligence paper that was written after a technique was used for her short film Come Swim, giving her an Erdős number of 5,[21][22] and she co-starred with Michael Sheen in Twilight, who co-starred with Bacon in Frost/Nixon, giving her a Bacon number of 2.

Table
Name Erdős number Bacon number Erdős–Bacon number
Mayim Bialik 527[23]
Richard Feynman 336[8]
Colin Firth 6[lower-alpha 1][16] 1[20] 7
Stephen Hawking 4 2[lower-alpha 2] 6[9]
Daniel Kleitman 123[6]
Danica McKellar 4[24][25][26][27] 2[lower-alpha 1] 6
Nicholas Metropolis 2[8] 2[28] 4
Natalie Portman 5[11][12][13][14][15] 2[lower-alpha 1] 7[10]
Carl Sagan 4 2[lower-alpha 2] 6[29]
Kristen Stewart 5[21] 2[30][31] 7

Notes:

  1. See discussion above (Actors).
  2. Includes role as self.

References
  1. Singh, Simon (May 1, 2002). "And the winner tonight is". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on November 12, 2012. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
  2. "There's not much separating her from Bacon, Erdos". USA Today. August 14, 2007. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012.
  3. Collins, James J.; Chow, Carson C. (1998). "It's a small world". Nature. 393 (6684): 409–10. Bibcode:1998Natur.393..409C. doi:10.1038/30835. PMID 9623993. S2CID 6827605.
  4. Len Fisher (2016-02-17). "What's your Erdös-Bacon-Sabbath number?". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  5. Nancy Duvergne Smith (2013-01-29). "Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath Numbers: MITers at the Center of the Creative Universe". Slice of MIT. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  6. Grossman, Jerry (January 27, 1999). "The Erdös Number Project". Oakland University. Archived from the original on 1999-02-03.. Current version at "The Erdös Number Project". Oakland University.
  7. Grossman, Jerry (March 11, 2020). "The Erdös Number Project". Oakland University. Archived from the original on 2020-03-11.. Current version at "The Erdös Number Project". Oakland University.
  8. "Richard Feynman". Erdős Bacon Sabbath Project. Archived from the original on 2017-12-25. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  9. "Stephen Hawking". Erdős Bacon Sabbath Project. Archived from the original on 2017-12-25. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
  10. "MICHAEL'S ERDŐS-BACON NUMBER | The Liquid Narrative Research Group". liquidnarrative.eae.utah.edu.
  11. Baird, A; Kagan, J; Gaudette, T; Walz, KA; Hershlag, N; Boas, DA (2002). "Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy". NeuroImage. 16 (4): 1120–5. doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1170. PMID 12202098. S2CID 15630444.
  12. Baird, Abigail A.; Colvin, Mary K.; Vanhorn, John D.; Inati, Souheil; Gazzaniga, Michael S. (2005). "Functional Connectivity: Integrating Behavioral, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data Sets". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 17 (4): 687–93. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.484.1868. doi:10.1162/0898929053467569. PMID 15829087. S2CID 4666737.
  13. Victor, Jonathan D.; Maiese, Kenneth; Shapley, Robert; Sidtis, John; Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1989). "Acquired central dyschromatopsia: analysis of a case with preservation of color discrimination". Clinical Vision Sciences. 4: 183–96.
  14. Azor, Ruth; Gillis, J.; Victor, J. D. (1982). "Combinatorial Applications of Hermite Polynomials". SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis. 13 (5): 879–90. doi:10.1137/0513062.
  15. Erdos, P.; Gillis, J. (2009). "Note on the Transfinite Diameter". Journal of the London Mathematical Society. s1-12 (3): 185. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-12.2.185.
  16. Kanai, Ryota; Feilden, Tom; Firth, Colin; Rees, Geraint (2011). "Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults". Current Biology. 21 (8): 677–80. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.017. PMC 3092984. PMID 21474316.
  17. "Colin Firth credited in brain research". BBC News. 2011-06-05.
  18. Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Samuel; Schindler, Andreas; Rees, Geraint (2010). Baker, Chris I (ed.). "Knowing with Which Eye We See: Utrocular Discrimination and Eye-Specific Signals in Human Visual Cortex". PLOS ONE. 5 (10): e13775. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...513775S. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013775. PMC 2966441. PMID 21048942.
  19. "Andreas Schindler". Max Planck Institutefor Biological Cybernetics. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
  20. Where the Truth Lies at IMDb
  21. Gershgorn, Dave. "Kristen Stewart (yes, that Kristen Stewart) just released a research paper on artificial intelligence".
  22. "From Paul Erdős to Kristen Stewart in five papers". Archived from the original on 2018-03-14. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
  23. "Mayim Bialik". Erdős Bacon Sabbath Project. Archived from the original on 2018-01-15. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
  24. "The Erdős Number Project, Erdos1". Archived from the original on 2006-12-07. Retrieved 2006-12-20.
  25. Chayes, L; McKellar, D; Winn, B (1998). "Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller models on". Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General. 31 (45): 9055. Bibcode:1998JPhA...31.9055C. doi:10.1088/0305-4470/31/45/005.
  26. Chayes, J. T.; Chayes, L.; Kotecký, R. (1995). "The analysis of the Widom-Rowlinson model by stochastic geometric methods". Communications in Mathematical Physics. 172 (3): 551. Bibcode:1995CMaPh.172..551C. doi:10.1007/BF02101808. S2CID 15051914.
  27. Kotecký, R.; Preiss, D. (1986). "Cluster expansion for abstract polymer models". Communications in Mathematical Physics. 103 (3): 491–8. Bibcode:1986CMaPh.103..491K. doi:10.1007/BF01211762. S2CID 121879006.
  28. "The Oracle of Bacon". oracleofbacon.org.
  29. "Carl Sagan". Erdős Bacon Sabbath Project. Archived from the original on 2018-01-11. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
  30. Twilight at IMDb co-starred Kristen Stewart and Michael Sheen
  31. Frost/Nixon at IMDb co-starred Michael Sheen and Kevin Bacon
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.