the same time/place - at a session at Sandy Bell's in Edinburgh. Though Cathal didn't actually
play that night, IIRC, but Jack Campin did.
wil
John Chambers wrote:
Henrik Norbeck writes: | Jack Campin wrote: | >Your Erdos number is 1 + the minimal Erdos number of anyone you | >co-authored a paper with. | | There is also the famous "Kevin Bacon" number for movie stars, | see the "Oracle of Bacon" at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/
One of my favorite takeoffs on this was the headline a few years back in the Onion: Kevin Bacon linked to Al Qaeda
This by itself was a wonderful commentary about all the news reports of people "linked to" Osama or Saddam or other unsavory types. But even funnier was the observation a few weeks later that they got one thing wrong.
They showed a line of six faces, with Bacon first and bin Laden last, giving Osama a Bacon number of 5. Several people discovered two chains of movies that showed the number was 3. And in both chains, the face next to Osama's was the same: George W Bush. This may be funny, but it isn't surprising when you realize that these were both documentaries on the Middle East. It's likely that neither of these two characters had known that they were in two movies together.
| >In the ABC world, Chris Walshaw is the obvious zero point. | | Well, my Walshaw number is at least as low as three. I have | played with P=E4r Moberg and Anna-Kristina Widell, who have both | played with Anna Tabbush, who plays with Chris Walshaw. | | Concerning these types of numbers, in most networks like this | there are a few central characters who link almost everybody.
Yeah; that's why Erd�s and Bacon were picked. Some people have suggested that Michael Caine would be another good zero point for movies. But Kevin Bacon was the one who got chosen first, for no good reason other than that he has been in a lot of movies.
Paul Erd�s is an interesting case, because he more or less triggered it himself. He is often described as the world's greatest itinerant mathematician. He didn't much believe in things like home or property, and more or less limited his physical posessions to what he could carry in two suitcases. He spoke at least six languages fluently. If you were a mathematician, he would show up at your door without notice, and within a sentence or two would be talking about a recent paper of yours.
As soon as you had a chance, you'd call a few colleagues, inform them that Paul is in town, and they'd start taking care of notifying everyone and arranging to care for him. When he left town a few weeks or months later, you'd find yourself exhausted, with a stack of proofs and the start of a pile of papers, which would of course include Paul as an author. And you'd now have an Erd�s number of 1. The local mathematical crowd would find ways to make sure that he left with all the tickets he needed to get to his next victim, plus a good supply of cash of whatever form he needed where he was going. If possible, you'd notify the people there that he was on his way. Caring for him was generally considered a communal responsibility. He considered mathematics a communal project. He was happy to have you write up the papers and put your name first, as long as the community learned what he and you had discovered. His name is on over 1500 papers, including about 50 published after his death.
One person that may produce low "Walshaw numbers" might be Cathal McConnell. I've been at a number of after-parties with the Boys of the Lough, in several cities. These are always jam sessions, and Cathal is usually there playing his flute (on the wrong side ;-) about 95% of the evening. So I figure that he puts me two links away from much of the traditional Irish music crowd, and three hops from almost all the rest. But I've never tried to figure out who that might include.
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