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soupboy
Doesn't work with Erdös number, in case any of you were wondering.
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yen223
Implementing an algorithm to determine an actor's Bacon number is about as nerdy as it gets =)
rglovejoy
Right. I tried finding out Erdös' Bacon number and nothing came up.
libria
4, if an Erdos/Bacon number were a thing:

P. Erdős and C. Pomerance published "On the largest prime factors of n and n +1"

C. Pomerance and L. Adleman published "On Distinguishing Prime Numbers From Composite Numbers"

L Adleman was a mathematical consultant in Sneakers with David Strathairn.

David Strathairn and Kevin Bacon appeared in The River Wild.

//edit, Randy Pausch actually appeared in a movie so I'm sure there's a connection there, too.

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waterlesscloud
I wonder what the cutoff for notability is. It seems to work for big names but not bit part players. Oracle Of Bacon works with all of imdb, but I guess google can't use that resource...
sethish
Boo, I have a bit part listed on IMDB and it does not work on my name.
waterlesscloud
I'm thinking they're using something like wikipedia movie entries as the source. Something that just lists topline cast. As some other threads mention, cameos from even well-known types may not be factored in.
prawn
Nothing for Bill Laimbeer.
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mixmax
I'm disappointed it doesn't work with Erdös numbers.

I thought Google was supposed to be a geeky company.

AncientPC
Probably because there's no easily accessible data store like IMDB for famous mathematicians or computer scientists.
cschmidt
Actually there is an automated Erdos number search here:

http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/collaborationDistance.html

using the MathSciNet reference database. Unfortuately, it is only accessible to MathSciNet subscribers, so basically on all university campuses or libraries.

My Erdos number is no higher than 5 :-).

evincarofautumn
Hm. My old professor has an Erdős number of 3. I should see about authoring a paper with him…
adgar
IMDB data has serious licensing restrictions. I would be extremely surprised if it were used as a source for this.
usergenerated
IMDB, which started in the days of Usenet, was founded on user contributions. In today's parlance, it's built from user generated content (UGC).

It would be surprising to see any suit to enforce the licensing restrictions on a database built from user contributions like IMDB actually go to trial.

We might come away with some interesting answers to the questions of what licensing terms on such databases are truly enforceable (as opposed to mere intimidation).

What happened to that Craigslist lawsuit? How is that progressing?

yen223
Strange times we live in, when making an algorithm to calculate a random piece of trivia is no longer considered 'geeky' =)
mcguire
Well, yes, but it's not an interesting piece of trivia. Like the Erdös numbers.
lutusp
> Well, yes, but it's not an interesting piece of trivia. Like the Erdös numbers.

Yes, true, but by not being actually interesting as the Erdös numbers are, this makes it ... interesting. Sort of like the least interesting number, which ... oh, I'm sure you follow. :)

dylanz
I was at a dinner event in New Zealand, started talking to this old guy about random topics, and as it turns out... he has an Erdös number of 1. I was definitely a bit floored as he started to describe what they worked on (in person at one point), especially as most of what he spoke of went right over my head. It was a pretty neat and random thing to experience.

As for a "Bacon Number"... I'm giving myself a 1. I actually have a plate of bacon sitting right next to me, and that's the bacon that matters the most.

EDIT: As per jerf (good catch!), I can confirm that I am not actually bacon. I changed my "bacon number" above from 0 to 1.

jerf
That would still be 1. To have a bacon (non-capital) number of 0, you would have to be the bacon.
huhtenberg
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of a well-marbled tissue where my abs used to be :)
mnicole
"Be the bacon" I hope someone takes this ad campaign idea and runs with it.
davelog
Human meat is often referred to as 'long pig'. That'd be a gutsy campaign.
daurnimator
If you have eaten enough bacon; you are in large quantities, derived from bacon. I think a bacon number of ~0.25 is entirely possible.
rurounijones
Well colour me shocked, I thought I would give Google a workout and try "Orson Welles"... turns out his number is a very run-of-the-mill 2
lazugod
As are Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock (they even share the same Bacon liaison).
essayist
It took me a while to find someone with a Bacon number>2: Prince
opinali
Try foreign and old actors, e.g. Mazzaropi (famous Brazilian comedian from the 1950'-70's), Google computes a bacon number 5... but The Oracle of Bacon returns 3, they have a bigger database.
bratsche
I got to 3 with Bela Lugosi. I couldn't get any further, so I finally turned to the comments to see who had >3.
tmh88j
The first one I found was 3: Chip Foose, a car designer. I couldn't think of anyone and he happened to be smiling at me from the calendar on my desk.
picklefish
Me too. I had to go to foreign child actors. Found a 4 with Kåre Hedebrant who played the kid, Oscar, in "Let the Right One In" (The original swedish version of Let Me In)

Edit: However, oracle of bacon says he's only a 3...

dexter313
7

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow...

3JPLW
It should be 2.

  William Shatner was in Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)[0] with Denise Richards[1]
  Denise Richards was in Wild Things (1998)[2] with Kevin Bacon
Source: http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse373/11wi/h...

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107659/fullcredits#cast

[1] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000612/

[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120890/

twoodfin
Shafter, not Shatner.

This guy is famous in Baconumerology, but I am skeptical that all the links included count as "films".

feefie
Google says Justin Bieber's bacon number is 4, but he was in Men In Black III with Josh Brolin and Josh Brolin was in Hollow Man with Keven Bacon.
smcl
Weird, Adolf Hitler is meant to have a Bacon number of 3, but he doesn't return anything on Google. From the Wikipedia page:

Adolf Hitler was in Ewige Jude, Der (1940) with Curt Bois Curt Bois was in Great Sinner, The (1949) with Kenneth Tobey Kenneth Tobey was in Hero at Large (1980) with Kevin Bacon

irishcoffee
I see little need to waste CPU cycles on him, personally.
[dead] lols
edgy as fuck
chubot
Hm, it seems like basically any actor you can think of off the top of your head has a Bacon number of 2 (or less). I guess that makes sense. Anyone have some interesting examples of 4+ bacon numbers??
ImprovedSilence
Yeah, I can't get any higher than two... granted, I'm not super up my with Hollywood, but I thought I could get more than that.....
JonnieCache
Salvador dali was the only way I could get over 2 (he's 3) in about 5 minutes of trying.

Oh yeah, and stephen hawking is 3.

garypezza
justin bieber has 4, the largest I found
stan_rogers
It's got to be hard to get there if all of the connections are mapped -- I'm a 3. (I worked briefly with Giancarlo Giannini to prep him for his role in the awful Mimic, since I was shining shoes for a living at the time and the producers were willing to give me $200/hr to show him how to hold a brush; Giannini was in Hannibal with Julianne Moore; Moore was in Crazy, Stupid Love with Bacon.)
blah2
David Beckham has a bacon number of 3!
sobriquet
Mark Zuckerberg's Bacon number is 4 Mark Zuckerberg => Ehren McGhehey => Johnny Knoxville => Sarah Jessica Parker => Kevin Bacon
dasil003
Best I found was Shirley Temple @ 3
CWuestefeld
Spoiler alert

The highest I can find after some research is a 7. If you want to see it, Rot-13 this: Jvyyvnz Ehshf Funsgre

Edit: I promise this isn't a Rick Roll.

vinutheraj
David Mitchell of Peep Show fame has a Bacon number of 3.
frankiejr
Shane Carruth (Primer). His bacon number is 4.
sjm
Renée Jeanne Falconetti's Bacon number is 4, best I've found so far.

Edit: apparently William Rufus Shafter's Bacon number is 7.

Jyaif
Taylor Rain's Bacon number is 4
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mcmire
Well, I guess this makes the Oracle of Bacon obsolete. Wonder how those guys feel about this.
engtech
Turns out that Kevin Bacon is only the 444th best candidate for being the center of a six degrees search of Hollywood.

http://oracleofbacon.org/center.php

engtech
The top five best centers for six degrees of hollywood separation are:

   Dennis Hopper (2.802166)
   Harvey Keitel (2.812642)
   Donald Sutherland (I) (2.819748)
   David Carradine (I) (2.819993)
   Udo Kier (2.826828)
mammalfriend
What this tells me is that someone in the Google PR department had an idea, and a bunch of really smart people actually were resourced to work on it. While at the same time, my search results for useful queries have more spam than ever.

Hm.

endeavor
Hopefully this was a 20% project.
gyaresu
There's a Gareth Bacon...

:(

mhartl
For the curious, confused, or uninitiated, this whole phenomenon is almost certainly based on the coincidence that "separation" and "Kevin Bacon" sound similar, combined with the well-known phrase "six degrees of separation" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation). Thus, "six degrees of Kevin Bacon".
jdechko
Apparently I have a Bacon Number of 4. I dated a girl who was an extra in "Footloose" (2011 remake), with Dennis Quaid, who was in "The Right Stuff" with Fred Ward, who was in "Tremors" with Mr. Bacon.

Neat.

acheron
I do too, through actually appearing on film, even.

Ok, videotape. I was in a videotaped school play with someone who according to Oracle of Bacon has a Bacon number of 3. (Google doesn't work since he's pretty obscure, Oracle of Bacon uses all of IMDB I guess.)

Now I just need to find out if I can get an Erdos number out of any of my advisors.

kevinpacheco
It's flawed. Google claims a Bacon number of > 1 for Johnny Carson, Rosie O'Donnell and Jay Leno, but he sat for interviews on their talk shows. Also, the results for some musicians include recorded-footage appearances in movies where they had no interaction with the cast.
ok_craig
Still seems to be just a rather clear distinction between being in a movie or not being in a movie, regardless of significance of the part or role played. To me this doesn't seem like a flaw.
ColinWright
I have an Erdös number of the first kind of 2, and an Erdös number of the second kind of at most 3. I'm working on my Bacon number. So far I've appeared on television with: Carol Vorderman, Gareth Jones, Angela Rippon, Fred Dineage, and several others that I need to track down, but are even less well known.

My challenge is working out who I have been with that might have been in a film.

pbhjpbhj
You were juggling on How2?
ColinWright
Yup - "How do you juggle your numbers?" - the SiteSwap notation in action, with the "jugglometer".
mey
Does this mean you can ask Google Now for Bacon numbers?