
Erdős–Bacon number - eindiran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_number
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Syzygies
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.

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freepor
What role did you play in A Beautiful Mind? I.e. who are you?

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ceocoder
Based on [0] and [1] I'd say Professor Dave Bryer.

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20121112081753/http://www.telegr...](https://web.archive.org/web/20121112081753/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/4768389/And-the-winner-tonight-is.html)

[1] [https://simonsingh.net/media/articles/maths-and-
science/erdo...](https://simonsingh.net/media/articles/maths-and-
science/erdos-bacon-numbers/)

[2]
[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1101413/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t41](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1101413/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t41)

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Syzygies
Yes, Dave Bayer. I was the math consultant, but it's like joining the circus,
once inside you do what you can. For one example, when I was a kid my Mom left
out a Time Life book on drugs, and my brother and I were fascinated by the
various photographs of spiderwebs made under the influence of different
recreational drugs. That idea helped shape the "mad shack" in the film. I was
also Russell Crowe's hand double, and I had a speaking part in the pen
ceremony.

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freepor
Russell Crowe's hand double? Does he have bad hands or something?

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frabert
Not having seen the movie, I'm guessing there are scenes where Crowe needs to
write some math, and it just looked more convicing by letting an actual
mathematician do it for him.

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whalesalad
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...](https://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2.pdf)

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c3534l
"I'm not a drug addict, I just can't function without drugs. Totally
different."

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ta999999171
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.

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whalesalad
Spot on.

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ejcx
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!

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chenhan
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.

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

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

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ColinWright
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 ...

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tomc1985
What is that double-accented o called and how is it pronounced?

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grzm
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"_

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ashton314
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/)

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dandare
Can you ELI5 both? I don't get it.

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abhorrence
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.

