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Revision as of 22:35, 24 January 2006 by 169.226.140.79 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)A person's Erdős-Bacon number is the sum of their Erdős number and their Bacon number. To have a finite Erdős-Bacon number, one must therefore have both appeared in a film and co-authored a mathematical paper.
For a time, the sole person with the lowest known Erdős-Bacon number was Brian Greene. He appeared in Frequency with John Di Benedetto, who was in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon, for a Bacon number of 2. He also wrote a paper with Shing-Tung Yau, who wrote a paper with Ronald Graham, who wrote a paper with Paul Erdős, for an Erdős number of 3 and a combined Erdős-Bacon number of 5.
Brian Greene was later matched by Dave Bayer, mathematical consultant to A Beautiful Mind who received a minor role on screen in the movie. Rance Howard was also in A Beautiful Mind and in Apollo 13 with Kevin Bacon to give Bayer a Bacon number of 2. Bayer's Erdős number is also 3, totalling to an Erdős-Bacon number of 5 as well.
Danica McKellar, most famous for her role as Winnie Cooper in The Wonder Years, has an Erdős-Bacon number of 6.
Danny Kleitman, a mathematician at MIT, was an advisor for the movie Good Will Hunting and had a small cameo appearance. Minnie Driver appeared in that movie, and she also appeared in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon. So Kleitman's Bacon number is 2. On the other hand, he coauthored a paper with Erdõs. This gives him an Erdõs-Bacon number of 3. This is probably the infimum of the set of all existing Erdös-Bacon numbers.
External links
- Erdos-Bacon Numbers - Written for the Daily Telegraph, April 2002
- The Erdös Number Project
- Boing Boing directory article
- BBC Radio 4 - A Further 5 Numbers