A recent game of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon (which shouldn't be played with people who grew up in the 80s) got me thinking about Erdos - that insanely prolific mathematician. He published over 1400 papers in his lifetime (1913 - 1996). It's now commonplace for mathematicians to chest bump over their Erdos numbers (it's true, I've seen it).
Interestingly, a small number of people are connected to both Erdős and Bacon and thus have an Erdős–Bacon number. Actress-mathematician, Danica McKellar, best known for playing Winnie Cooper on the TV series, The Wonder Years, has Erdős number of 4 and a Bacon number of 2 (I always liked Winnie). The lowest known Erdős–Bacon num is 3 for Daniel Kleitman, a math prof at MIT; his Erdős number is 1 and his Bacon number is 2 (he had a short cameo in Good Will Hunting).
I wonder what the degrees of separation are between Erdos and Bacon?
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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