Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

The Bacon number or even Kevin Bacon number ( KBZ ) is the length of the shortest chain of actors who play together in a movie to Kevin Bacon. It provides an illustration of the discovered by Stanley Milgram small-world phenomenon ( small world phenomenon ) dar. Based on the theory of six degrees of separation is also called the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Calculation

Kevin Bacon himself has Bacon number 0 Each actor who has starred with him in a film has, the Bacon Number 1 An actor who has shot with one of these actors a movie, but not with Kevin Bacon, has the Bacon number 2, etc.

Example: Elvis Presley was seen with Edward Asner in the movie Change of habit (1969). Edward Asner played with along with Kevin Bacon in the movie JFK (1991). Elvis Presley played in a film with Kevin Bacon, so he has the Bacon Number 2

The idea after searching the shortest chain of actors to Kevin Bacon probably goes back to Craig Fass, Brian Turtle and Mike Ginelli, it was popularized by its appearance in January 1994 at Jon Stewart's The Jon Stewart Show, and for her book of 1996.

Mathematical definition and implications

Let S be the set of all film actors and symmetric relation, defined by: where both played along if and only if there is a movie. Then an undirected graph G. The forms Bacon number of an actor is now defined as the distance from s to Kevin Bacon in G.

Since the sets S and R are getting bigger over time (there will be added new elements, never will but an already existing item disappear ), the Bacon number of an actor in the course of time can be further reduced ( but never larger). This is even after the death of the corresponding actor ( or even Kevin Bacon ) is possible.

The relation R is symmetric and reflexive already (if you only look at actors who played along ever been in a movie). To be an equivalence relation, that is missing is the transitivity. If we consider the transitive closure of R, so it is therefore an equivalence relation. Exactly the actors who are there with Kevin Bacon in an equivalence class, have a finite Bacon number.

Others

The largest KBZ is according to the "The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia " KBZ 8 In the " Hall of Fame " of the " Oracle of Bacon" there is, however, a report in December 2000, stating that a certain Ashley King on an actor with a KBZ of 11, one has met with a 10 and more with a 9.

The Bacon - number gives an indication of the small-world phenomenon " I know someone who knows someone who knows someone again, ...", which leads on quite a few intermediate stations of any people to each other. With over 800,000 actors, the average KBZ in August 2005 was less than 3

The Erdős number is a size in units of mathematics, which is a publishing relationship with Paul Erdős. In physics, Pauli number is known, which is the compound with Pauli.