The many degrees of Erdos – and Bacon!
An interesting phenomenon in the world of mathematics networks is something called the Erdős number. Paul Erdős was an influential mathematician from Hungary who published over 1,500 mathematical articles and collaborated with hundreds of mathematicians and scientists from all over the world. Erdős himself is assigned an Erdős number of zero. A direct collaborator of Erdős on an academic paper would be assigned a number of 1. Someone who collaborated with that collaborator then would be assigned the number 2. A certain author’s Erdős number is one greater than the lowest Erdős number of any of their collaborators. This principle can be used to examine the network of mathematicians worldwide.
The concept of the Erdős number isn’t restricted to the world of mathematical research, however. It is better known by a more familiar application – analyzing the network of actors. The Bacon number, also known as the 5 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, captures an actor’s closeness to Kevin Bacon. It isn’t intuitive to think that we are only a few degrees of separation away from Hollywood’s most famous stars, yet we can use network analysis to challenge our perceptions and beliefs. There are even crazy-sounding permutations of these rules, including the Erdős – Bacon number, which indicates an individual has both acted in a professional film and published a mathematical article. Natalie Portman has an Erdős – Bacon number of 7!!