Physics Buzz: Six degrees of Paul Erdős

Some famous names have low Erdős numbers— Bill Gates has an Erdős number of 4, Steven Chu’s is 7, and Albert Einstein is 2.

If Chu’s is 7, mine is no greater than 10; I can trivially trace a path through my thesis advisor to his, to Chu.

And I’ve already mentioned that I sort of have a Bacon number of 3. Consequently, I’d like to popularize the notion of combining the two by adding them, making my Bacon-Erdős number, or Berdős number, 13 (or perhaps adding in quadrature, making my Berdős number 10.44)

Meanwhile, Chad asks Who Is the Erdos of Physics? Maybe we can make this three dimensional.

(Update: I’ve found that my Erdős number is no larger than 9, and I may be able to bring it down to 6 fairly easily)