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
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.)