Closeness of someone's association with mathematician Paul Erdős and actor Kevin Bacon
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 as ones co-authors must have a known chain leading to
Paul Erdős, and one's film must have actors eventually leading to
Kevin Bacon.
Physicist
Nicholas Metropolis has an Erdős number of 2,[7] and also a Bacon number of 2,[8] giving him an Erdős–Bacon number of 4.
Physicists Nicholas Metropolis and
Richard Feynman both worked on the
Manhattan Project at
Los Alamos Laboratory. Via Metropolis, Feynman has an Erdős number of 3 and, from having appeared in the film Anti-Clock alongside
Tony Tang, Feynman also has a Bacon number of 3. Richard Feynman thus has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6.[7]
Similarly to Stephen Hawking, scientist
Carl Sagan has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6, also from a Bacon number of 2 and an Erdős number of 4.[10]
Mathematician
Jordan Ellenberg has an Erdős number of 3[11] and a Bacon number of 2 due to a cameo appearance in the film Gifted for which he was also the mathematical consultant[12]
Israeli-American actress
Natalie Portman has an Erdős–Bacon number of 7.[15] She collaborated (using her birth name, Natalie Hershlag) with Abigail A. Baird,[16] who has a collaboration path[17][18][19] leading to
Joseph Gillis, who has an Erdős number of 1, giving Portman an Erdős number of 5.[20] 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.
British actor
Colin Firth has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6. Firth is credited as co-author of a neuroscience paper, "Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults",[21] after he suggested on
BBC Radio 4 that such a study could be done.[22] Another author of that paper,
Geraint Rees, has an Erdős number of 4,[23] which gives Firth an Erdős number of 5. Firth's Bacon number of 1 is due to his appearance in Where the Truth Lies.[24][25]
^Erdős, P.; Hildebrand, A.; Odlyzko, A.; Pudaite, P.;
Reznick, B. (1987). "The asymptotic behavior of a family of sequences". Pacific J. Math. no. 2 (126): 227–241.
^Grossman, Jerry (December 6, 2018).
"The Erdös Number Project". Oakland University.
Archived from the original on 2020-03-11. Retrieved 2021-03-03.
^
ab"Carl Sagan". Erdős Bacon Sabbath Project. Archived from
the original on 2018-01-11. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
^
ab"MR: Search MSC database". mathscinet.ams.org. Retrieved 2022-02-06. MR Erdos Number = 3 Jordan S. Ellenberg coauthored with Christopher M. Skinner MR1844206 Christopher M. Skinner coauthored with Andrew M. Odlyzko MR1210537 Andrew M. Odlyzko coauthored with Paul Erdős1 MR0535395
^
abBaird, 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.
PMID12202098.
S2CID15630444.
^
abBaird, 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.
CiteSeerX10.1.1.484.1868.
doi:
10.1162/0898929053467569.
PMID15829087.
S2CID4666737.
^
abVictor, 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.
^
abAzor, 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.
^
abErdos, 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.
^"The Oracle of Bacon". oracleofbacon.org. Retrieved 2021-05-08. Elon Musk has a Bacon number of 2. Elon Musk was in Iron Man 2 with Mickey Rourke was in Diner with Kevin Bacon
^"MR: Search MSC database". mathscinet.ams.org. Retrieved 2021-05-08. MR Erdos Number = 3 Pardis C. Sabeti coauthored with Michael Mitzenmacher MR3595146 Michael Mitzenmacher coauthored with Joel H. Spencer MR2056083 Joel H. Spencer coauthored with Paul Erdős1 MR0382007