Erdos number

The Erdös number of a mathematician is determined as follows:

• Paul Erdös has an Erdös number of zero.
• The Erdös number of mathematician M is defined to be the minimum of the Erdös numbers of all the mathematicians that M coauthored a mathematical paper with, plus one.

The Erdos number honours the late Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös who was one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history. He authored around 1500 papers in his lifetime, mostly co-authored with other persons. He had about 500 collaborators, these are the people with Erdös number 1.

The Bacon number is an application of the same idea to the movie industry.

External links:

• Jerry Grossman, "The Erdös number project", http://www.oakland.edu/~grossman/erdoshp.html. Contains statistics and a complete list of all mathematicians with an Erdös number less than or equal to 2.

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