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Erdős–Bacon number

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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 wrote a paper with Persi Diaconis, who had an Erdős number of 2 until 2004, when he published a posthumous paper with Paul Erdős. So Bayer's Erdős-Bacon number is now 4.

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 appeared briefly as an extra. 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 Erdős. This gives him an Erdős-Bacon number of 3. This would probably be the infimum of the set of all existing Erdős-Bacon numbers.

Hank Aaron, a baseball player, is sometimes also considered to have an Erdõs-Bacon number of 3, as he and Erdős both autographed a baseball (from which is he jokingly referred to as having Erdős number of 1), and he also appeared in Summer Catch with Susan Gardner, who was in In The Cut with Bacon.

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