On 14/09/2012 05:56 PM, Warp wrote:
> James Holsenback<nom### [at] nonecom>  wrote:
>> even kermit the frog has a bacon number ...
>
>> try ANY actor/actress in this form:
>
>> first last bacon number in google ... great trivia fun!
>
> In the academic word the equivalent is the Erdos number.

I believe Erdos number came first, and the Bacon number was defined as a 
humorous analogue (in reference to how ridiculously popular Mr Bacon is 
- there are T-shirts about him everywhere!)

> Then there's the combination, the Erdos-Bacon number. Not many people
> have one, but some do, including some celebrities (such as Natalie
> Portman.)

I believe _technically_ everybody has a defined number - it's just not 
finite...

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > Then there's the combination, the Erdos-Bacon number. Not many people
> > have one, but some do, including some celebrities (such as Natalie
> > Portman.)

> I believe _technically_ everybody has a defined number - it's just not 
> finite...

Given the humorous nature of these "numbers" it really doesn't matter how
you define it. But the simplest and most straightforward way of defining
someone who has no connection to said person(s) is that they don't have
a number.

I have no Bacon number because I have never acted in any movie. I have no
idea if I have an Erdos number, but it might be (I have contributed to some
minor publications of computing science, so there's a real possibility
of a chain of co-authors all the way to Erdos.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> I have no Bacon number because I have never acted in any movie. I have no
> idea if I have an Erdos number, but it might be (I have contributed to some
> minor publications of computing science, so there's a real possibility
> of a chain of co-authors all the way to Erdos.)

Btw, I most probably have a Shusaku number, and it might not even be very
large, although I have no idea how large it might be (but I'd say there's
a real possibility of it being smaller than 10.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 14/09/2012 7:59 PM, Warp wrote:
> I have no Bacon number because I have never acted in any movie.

My bacon number is 0.143 because I have a roll and bacon once a week.
Yes?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 14/09/2012 08:02 PM, Warp wrote:
> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:
>> I have no Bacon number because I have never acted in any movie. I have no
>> idea if I have an Erdos number, but it might be (I have contributed to some
>> minor publications of computing science, so there's a real possibility
>> of a chain of co-authors all the way to Erdos.)
>
> Btw, I most probably have a Shusaku number, and it might not even be very
> large, although I have no idea how large it might be (but I'd say there's
> a real possibility of it being smaller than 10.)

The interesting thing is, of all the people who have a defined Bacon 
number, it's hardly ever larger than about 8. Similarly for the Erdos 
number.

You would /think/ that what with Erdos being a great figure in 
mathematics, having a lower Erdos number would be a great achievement. 
But actually, it turns out that human networks are so densely connected 
that almost every person can be connected to almost every other person 
with a mere handful of links.

It's a bit like the Birthday Paradox - you'd think the distances would 
be far bigger than they actually are...

(I'm sure I must have mentioned here a dozen times the title of the 
rather interesting book I read on this subject...)

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On 14/09/2012 08:18 PM, Stephen wrote:
> My bacon number is 0.143 because I have a roll and bacon once a week.
> Yes?

Quoting Timon:

Aaaaaare ya achin'
Foooooor some bacon?

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On 9/14/2012 11:07, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> (in reference to how ridiculously popular Mr Bacon is -

There are people (movie stars) who are more well-connected than Kevin Bacon, 
tho.

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

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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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On 14/09/2012 9:16 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Quoting Timon:

I take it you are not referring to Timon of Athens?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 15/09/2012 05:27 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 9/14/2012 11:07, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> (in reference to how ridiculously popular Mr Bacon is -
>
> There are people (movie stars) who are more well-connected than Kevin
> Bacon, tho.

Yes, apparently so. And, interestingly, I've never heard of any of them.

(Then again, Bacon isn't exactly the most famous actor ever. Maybe it's 
that lesser-known actors tend to get more background parts than 
well-known actors get lead roles?)

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