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April 23, 2004

Erdős Number

It transpires that Bill Tozier (Erdős #4) is auctioning on eBay the opportunity co-author a paper with him, and thereby secure the successful bidder an Erdős number of 5. John Quiggin quickly jumped in to offer willing co-authors a free Erdős number of 4.

This got me to thinking. What’s my Erdős number? Can I profit from the opportunities currently flying about the 'net?

After checking the Erdős Number Project, I now know that I have an Erdős number of 4, thanks to three co-authors (Greene, Hubsch and Vafa) I have in common with Shing-Tung Yau (Erdős #2).

No help to be had from Tozier and Quiggin. If I am to improve my Erdős number, I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Posted by distler at April 23, 2004 11:00 PM

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2 Comments & 0 Trackbacks

Re: Erdös Number

Math Reviews now has a fun facility, “MR Collaboration Distance”, that confirms that your Erdős number is at most 4. The path that it found for you is one that you know,

Distler -> Vafa -> Yau -> Chung -> Erdős.

(Note also that if you are really perfectionist about your markup, “Erdös” is a misspelling of “Erdős”. At least I think that the Hungarian umlaut is the right one.)

Posted by: Greg Kuperberg on November 10, 2004 1:49 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

Re: Erdös Number

Indeed, you are correct, Greg. Hungarian has a double acute accent, not an umlaut. So it’s ő (ő), not ö (ö).

Live and learn.

And thanks for the tip about the MathSciNet Collaboration Distance tool. Hours of amusement …

Posted by: Jacques Distler on November 10, 2004 2:33 PM | Permalink | PGP Sig | Reply to this

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