My Erdős-Bacon number is (at most) 7

Calculating my collaborative distances to Paul Erdős and Kevin Bacon gave me pre-election thoughts

If you're only here for some April 1 fun, don't read the last few paragraphs. If you don't mind some sort of Easter message regarding Hungarian politics, make sure to read until the end.

As most people who will be reading this already know -- by virtue of being either Hungarian, or an academic, or both -- the Erdős number is your collaborative distance to Paul Erdős, one of the most famous mathematicians of all time. Erdős has an Erdős number of 0 for being Erdős, a coauthor of Erdős has an Erdős number of 1, their coauthors have an Erdős number of 2, and so on. My Erdős number is 3, and the links are Paul Erdős - László Kóczy - Jean-Jacques Herings - Péter Bayer, which obviously says nothing of my research abilities, but I do assign it some coolness value. For comparison, the average recorded Erdős number among researchers with finite Erdős numbers is 4.65, the median is 5, and Stephen Hawking's is 4.

The Bacon number is a variation of the Erdős number but for actors, and it is centered around American actor Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon's number is 0, his costars have a Bacon number of 1, and so on. Those who have the dubious honor of knowing me from my teen years are aware that during high school I participated in weekly acting and improvisation workshops organized by Hungarian actress Margit Földessy. I didn't show a modicum of talent but that didn't stop me from achieving stardom. In 2005, me and a few others were selected to be extras in the Hungarian movie Tüskevár, and spent two days on a set in Csongrád, recording scenes in a classroom. For reasons unknown to me I do not appear on the list of credits, but there are a couple of shots of me (including one close-up) in the finished movie. One reason for not crediting me could be attributed to the fact that, indicative of the smoothness of the production process, the film didn't come out until 2012, and they probably forgot all about my two golden days in the limelight seven years earlier. Since most of the other extras are credited (despite the fact that, unlike me, they do not have close-ups in the movie) I think suing the company that made the film would be completely justified. However, in my magnanimity, I decided to forgo any and all legal actions, and simply lay my unofficial claim to the credit that is, as the reader can surely agree, rightfully mine. If we take it as given, then one of my many connections to Bacon is Kevin Bacon - Rose Byrne (costarred in X-men: First Class, 2011), Rose Byrne - László Umbráth (Spy, 2015), László Umbráth - Marcell Nagy (Sorstalanság, 2005), Marcell Nagy - Péter Bayer (Tüskevár, 2012), for a Bacon number of 4.

The Erdős-Bacon number is the sum of the Erdős and Bacon numbers. Finite numbers are reserved for accomplished polymaths. It is easy to see that my Erdős-Bacon number is 7, which is the smallest I know of among my friends and acquaintances, making me the greatest polyhistor in my environment, until I am informed otherwise. If anyone can match that, please don't hesitate to rub it in my face.

Obviously these numbers are jokes and no one should take them too seriously. They are variations of a pretty well-known concept called the Six Degrees of Separation, and first described by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy in 1929. Here's the direct quote from a conversation of two of his characters (retrieved from Wikipedia):

"A fascinating game grew out of this discussion. One of us suggested performing the following experiment to prove that the population of the Earth is closer together now than they have ever been before. We should select any person from the 1.5 billion inhabitants of the Earth – anyone, anywhere at all. He bet us that, using no more than five individuals, one of whom is a personal acquaintance, he could contact the selected individual using nothing except the network of personal acquaintances."

The population of the Earth is now five times that number, but thanks to advances in telecommunications, transport, and economic development, the degree of separation is only going down. Hungary in particular is witnessing an ever-increasing connectivity to the rest of the world. The fall of the iron curtain in 1989, the admittance to the EU in 2004, as well as three waves of mass exodus since Karinthy's time brought us closer to other cultures. And yet, in next week's election, over 60% of Hungarian voters are almost certain to support parties whose creed is organized solely around a hatred of other peoples. I try not to blame the electorate, it's clear that politicians (of all parties) are the main culprits, but it's hard to shake the feeling that something is very wrong with us as a nation.

The simple truth that can be learned from studying these stupidly low degrees of separation, like the Erdős numbers, Bacon numbers, and Erdős-Bacon numbers is that we are much more connected to every other person or group than we think. Even to the ones we don't understand. We all know and love people who know and love people that we don't understand. Migrants, Muslims, people of color, gays, lesbians, György Soros, etc., hating them, insulting them, hurting them hurts the ones we love either explicitly, or through hurting the ones they love, and through it all, we even hurt ourselves, no matter how different the target group may seem. There is no us and them, despite what we are told. The nations that understand this, live by this, and therefore are able to separate politics and hatred, are the healthy and successful ones. Hungary, despite giving the world Paul Erdős and Frigyes Karinthy, is not healthy. I sincerely hope that one day it will be, and that after April 8 I will have more reasons for optimism.

I wish everyone a happy Easter.

April 1, 2018.

Acknowledgement: I blame Mánuel László Mágó for unwittingly causing me to think about this topic.