thats how far we are from mathematician Erdos? Where is he?
Erdos Number
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Where is he? I guess that would be 0. I've never been asked that question before....
It is indeed 0, from Wikipedia:
Paul Erdős is the one person having an Erdős number of zero.
I'm happy to be on Wikipedia's good side. :)
Dec 23, 2009
0
#6
but dont we have to knowErdős location in the world, inorder to figure out our number?
No, just the number of links to a joint paper with him.
Dec 23, 2009
0
#8
He is dead anyways .. check this little link http://xkcd.com/599/ ... Very funny little strip that includes Erdos.. He was a fascinating person by the way.. a child prodigy, exchanging jokes in ancient greek at the age of 8 (if memory serves me) and being shown of doing calculations in his head when guests came by. Later on he became troubled (as so many other geniuses) - but you can read about him yourselves...
I've got a feeling people are misunderstand the Erdos number.
The Erdos number is not a measure of distance (in metres), rather a measure of how many people you must past through via co-authorship to reach Erdos himself. Ergo, you must have co-authored a mathematical paper (and even this does not guarantee that you have a defined Erdos Number).
Dec 24, 2009
0
#10
Nytik, I think only one person got that idea =) .. Actually there is a similar number in the Hollywood industry, though I can't remember which actor it is based on...
I co-authored a paper with a fellow about ten years ago, and he explained the Erdos number to me (prior to that, I had never heard of it, although I had, before then, heard of Erdos). This fellow, Tom Permutt (isn't that a great name for a math guy?), told me his Erdos number, and told me that now I have one too. So I know that I have one ... I just don't know what it is. I suppose that partial information might bear some resemblance to the axiom of choice? As in, we know that it exists but we cannot quite point to it?
Summum_Malum wrote:
Actually there is a similar number in the Hollywood industry, though I can't remember which actor it is based on...
Kevin Bacon.
There is also a chess version, the Morphy number, which is how many games you are away from Morphy. For example, Karpov has Morphy Number 4 - He played Reshevsky, who played Janowski, who played Bird, who played Morphy.
Hmm, never heard of the Morphy number before. Thanks everyone.
Dec 27, 2009
0
#15
Nytik wrote:
Summum_Malum wrote:
Actually there is a similar number in the Hollywood industry, though I can't remember which actor it is based on...
Kevin Bacon.
There is also a chess version, the Morphy number, which is how many games you are away from Morphy. For example, Karpov has Morphy Number 4 - He played Reshevsky, who played Janowski, who played Bird, who played Morphy.
Cool! I played Reshevsky (postal chess), so I have a Morphy number of 5. I had no idea. 
I am the only person living with a strangequark number of 0. Wow!
You can check your Kasparov-number (and many others, like Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal, Fischer) at www.ibeatgarry.com which calculates how many wins you are away from The Boss or others.
Apparently I am 5 links from Kasparov and Fischer and 4 links from Topalov and Tal.
Eternal_Patzer wrote:
Cool! I played Reshevsky (postal chess), so I have a Morphy number of 5. I had no idea.
Actually, that would give you Morphy Number 4 (as Reshevsky's number is 3).
Eternal Patzer, can I challenge you to get a Morphy number of 5?
Does anyone here have an Erdos number? If so, what is yours?