On 9/14/2012 11:07, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> I believe Erdos number came first,

Back in the 80s, I worked for the guy who (he claims) invented this concept 
for scientific papers. "Citation cross-reference indexing." Basically, you 
do a literature search by finding an interesting paper, and then finding 
other papers that cite some large percentage of the same papers this one 
cites, and then continue transitively.

He had cool cluster-plots of science up on the walls, here you'd go "well, 
this cluster is neurology, and that one's virology. In neurology, this is 
brains, that's eyes, that's other sensory nerves. In brains, this is primate 
brains, that's fish brains, that's other mammals. In primates, this is 
humans, that's chimps..."  Basically, fractal networks of interconnected 
papers, with each connection acting like a rubber band, tugging the actual 
papers into physical distances from each other. It was pretty cool.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "They're the 1-800-#-GORILA of the telecom business."

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