Does six + six degrees equal twelve degrees?

Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation: the idea that each individual on the planet is connected to all other individuals by no more than five intermediates. While it was actually proposed by a Hungarian writer in the 1920's, there have been some scientific tests of this principle with mixed results; it appears that the average connectivity (rather than the maximum) might be six intermediates (which would actually be seven degrees of separation).

A bit over ten years ago, fans of actor Kevin Bacon, observing that he'd been in lots of movies with lots of different actors, turned this into a game whereby you could calculate the "Bacon Number" or the distance between any other actor and Kevin Bacon, linked by appearing in the same movie. Thus anyone who has appeared in a movie with Kevin Bacon has a Bacon Number of 1, anyone who has appeared in a movie with someone who has appeared in a movie has a Bacon Number of 2, etc. If you want to know the Bacon Number for a specific actor, you can find it at The Oracle of Bacon, which uses the Internet Movie Database as the data for determining connectivity.

Not to be left out, mathematicians have their own version of this called the Erdös Number, named in honor of mathematician Paul Erdös, famous for his numerous collaborations (about 1500 published papers...he averaged nearly two papers per month from birth until death). One's Erdös number is based on collaboration: co-authors of Erdös have a number equal to 1, co-authors of co-authors have a number equal to 2, etc. Mathematicians, being what they are, have performed all sorts of interesting analyses of the connectivity of this network (general information on Erdös numbers can be found at The Erdös Number Project). To calculate your own Erdös number, you can go to MathSciNet (subscription by your institution required), search for yourself or co-authors under the author tab, then choose the connectivity option and the Erdös default button (remember, if you find a co-author's number, your own number is one larger). The papers indexed in this database are mathematical so connections that extend into other scientific disciplines won't be included, but if you do find a connection you at least know that your number is no larger than that (it could be smaller if there is a missing, but more direct, connection).

The most exciting figure (for real connectivity geeks, anyway) is of course the combined Erdös-Bacon number. This is the sum of both of these numbers for an individual and is much harder to achieve. It only applies to people who have both appeared in movies and written scientific publications (although there are some who calculate it based on looser criteria) and thus have potential connectivity to both Kevin Bacon and Paul Erdös (merely meeting those criteria doesn't guarantee a defined number, it just opens the possibility). Mathematicians and scientists are most likely to have the combined figure if they've appeared as extras or had bit roles in a movie; few professional actors have written scientific papers (although there are some, e.g., Natalie Portman has an Erdös-Bacon number of 9, and Danica McKellar has an Erdös-Bacon number of 6, both having co-authored scientific papers as undergraduates).

There aren't a lot of people with verified Erdös-Bacon numbers, but to my surprise, I'm one of them! I appeared as an extra in a movie (both visible and identifiable) while in college that gives me a Bacon Number of 2, and, despite not being a mathematician, I've been able to confirm an Erdös number of no more than 5, giving me a Erdös-Bacon value of 7. Beat that!

I wonder if I can put this on my CV?