Talk:Bacon number

"Notably, Bacon is not the most linkable actor. That honour (as of December 30, 2004) goes to Rod Steiger. The average Steiger number in the acting community is 2.679. By contrast, the average Bacon number is 2.955."

"Using one of the actors with the highest known finite Bacon number (7), William Rufus Shafter as the centre of the acting universe instead of Bacon, we can find two actors with a Rufus Shafter number of 15."

As of 2016 Willam Rufus Shafter has a bacon number of 4 https://oracleofbacon.org/

The entire cast of the 2004 film Primer no longer have have infinite Bacon numbers - "Samantha Thomson was in World Without Waves (2001) with ..."

I agree with Tolo - Kevin Bacon isn't famous because of the game - it's famous because of him. I have edited the opening sentence to reflect this.Tellkel 23:25, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Forgive me, but is Kevin Bacon only famous because of this Trivia (as the page currently says)? Personally, I doubt it. Possibly reword? Tolo 08:42, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)

I was just wondering... What is the significance of the Bacon number? Does it only have to do with the game "Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon", or is there some other application for it? thefamouseccles 08:02 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"we can find two actors with a Rufus Shafter number of 15." Nice, but I don't see the connection to the Bacon Number. Is the article trying to say that using Rufus Shafter numbers, we can find people with a higher finite number?

"By contrast, the average Bacon number is 2.943." How can the average be around 3000 with 8 being the highest finite number known?

62.45.129.214 11:49, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * That's a decimal point, not a thousands separator. --Angr/(comhrá) 23:01, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Can someone reword/explain what is written bellow. "record largest finite bacon number by year"? What does that mean? Why is 1998 "all 7s"? but 1997 is just 7? A bacon number of 7?

Actors with record largest finite Bacon number by year Year 	Record 1996 	7 1997 	7 1998 	all 7s 1999 	8 2000 	all 8s Dec 2000 	9, 10 Jul 2003 	all 8s

(Quoting the article) "Relaxing the definition of Bacon number to include crew, however, yields an Bacon number of 3 for Erdős. N is a number had original music by Mark Adler, who also provided music for The Rat Pack, which co-starred Joe Mantegna, who appeared with Bacon in Queens Logic." I still don't see how this connects Paul Erdős to Kevin Bacon. Someone needs to connect Erdős to Adler. Jxyama 18:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * My bad. I see it now. Jxyama 18:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Fun stuff
Some specific noteworthy people of interest:

Ronald Reagan has a Kevin Bacon number of 2:
 * 1) Ronald Reagan was in Young Doctors, The (1961) with Eddie Albert
 * 2) Eddie Albert was in Big Picture, The (1989) with Kevin Bacon

Adolf Hitler has a Kevin Bacon number of 3.
 * 1) Adolf Hitler was in Ewige Jude, Der (1940) with Curt Bois
 * 2) Curt Bois was in Great Sinner, The (1949) with Kenneth Tobey
 * 3) Kenneth Tobey was in Hero at Large (1980) with Kevin Bacon

Pope John Paul II has a Kevin Bacon number of 4.
 * 1) Pope John Paul II was in Padre Pio - Tra cielo e terra (2000) with Giovanni Lombardo Radice
 * 2) Giovanni Lombardo Radice was in Gangs of New York (2002) with Martin Scorsese
 * 3) Martin Scorsese was in Bringing Out the Dead (1999)  with Arthur J. Nascarella
 * 4) Arthur J. Nascarella was in In the Cut (2003) with Kevin Bacon

thought someone might find this interesting... ALKIVAR &trade; 01:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest William Rufus Shafter has a Bacon Number of 7:

1 William Rufus Shafter - Surrender of General Toral - Joseph Wheeler

2 Joseph Wheeler - General Wheeler and Secretary of War Alger at Camp Wikoff - Russell Alexander Alger

3 Russell Alexander Alger - President McKinley's Inspection of Camp Wikoff - William McKinley

4 William McKinley - Fifty Years Before Your Eyes - Charles Chaplin

5 Charles Chaplin - The Great Dictator - Don Brodie

6 Don Brodie - Murphy's Law - David Hayman

7 David Hayman - Where the Truth Lies - Kevin Bacon

Lidless

Note: The entire cast of the 2004 film Primer have infinite Bacon numbers
 * The Pope and William Rufus Shafter have infinite Bacon numbers if you stick to the purist way of only connecting by movies (excluding TV and documentaries). - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 15:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Reeve vs. Steiger
The page has been edited to indicate that Christopher Reeve, not Rod Steiger, is the best center in IMDb - a claim also appearing on the page for Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. I assume this information comes from IMDbPro, which calculates Bacon numbers and perhaps similar statistics for other actors. Can anyone verify that Reeve currently has the lowest number? This seems odd, since he doesn't even make the top 1000 best centers on the Oracle of Bacon list. --Ben Zimmer 19:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I was unable to confirm the info using IMDb, IMDbPro, Google. So I've removed it for now.    IMDbPro does not appear to compute data concerning "centers", only the standard Bacon number.   Because of this, I find the claim that the info was on IMDb somewhat suspect.  I also removed the IMDbPro link, as I couldn't see anything relevant to the article that wasn't already available (freely) from the Oracle of Bacon site.  --C S (Talk) 01:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've also changed the info at Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where the info apparently originated. I will ask the editor who added the info where he got it.  --C S (Talk) 01:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I find it hard to believe Rod Steiger is better connected than Christopher Lee. My understanding was that Lee is the best connected actor (he would anecdotally appear to have appeared in more films, in a greater variety of roles with more actors from both European and American cinema).


 * It's not about being better connected. It's about being connected to more people who are connected to more people who are better connected. At present, Lee and Steiger are at about the same point, with Dennis Hopper slightly ahead of them in the number one spot. I typed in the top 20 of their out of date top 1000 list, and Hopper was the clear winner. You can type any name in yourself to see, though I imagine it will continue to change over time. The calculator is at .--Parableman 02:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oops, I forgot to write about the response I got to my query:"Write to me, why don't you? 11:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)" So that's what happened.  --C S (Talk) 02:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[copied over from Talk: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon by User:C S] That would be Christopher Lee, not Christopher Reeve. Reeve isn't close. The current leader, though, is Dennis Hopper. The place to type in someone's name is. The 1000 best centers list that has Steiger on top is. Dennis Hopper is currently ahead of everyone else in the top 20 of that list. I didn't bother to go beyond that. I'm not sure how to cite that as a source. Is that supposed to count as original research and thus off-limits? If I posted it on my blog, I could cite it as me claiming this is true, but I don't know the general convention on that sort of thing here. --Parableman 02:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the best thing is to just to name the top center on the list of best centers and note the date of the list. I'm sure they will update the list sometime.  Doing your own research and posting on your blog so as to cite it, is heavily frowned upon.  But it might be ok to just say the information was retrieved on such and such date; in principle, it should be verifiable as the UVA people, I'm sure, keep good records.  That might be a little controversial though.  Probably, even then, the only thing you can really say is that Steiger is behind Hopper on such-and-such date.  BTW, it seems a lot of good stuff, like this stuff about centers, has been removed from the article.  It doesn't seem to me that's an improvement.  --C S (Talk) 02:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Primer
I removed the following from the "Notable Bacon numbers" section because at least one of the cast (David Sullivan (IX)) seems to have appeared in other films alongside other actors, and so would quite likely have a finite Bacon number.
 * The entire cast of the 2004 film Primer (Bacon number: infinite/undefined), as none of them has yet appeared in any other films (as of 2004).

--A bit iffy 14:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * See for (David Sullivan (IX))'s Bacon number. It's 3. That makes everyone else in the movie at least as close as 4. --Parableman 02:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Additional Facts
George W. Bush has a Bacon number of 2.

George W. Bush was in Counting Condi (2008) with Devin Ratray (I)

Devin Ratray (I) was in RIPD (2013) with Kevin Bacon

This article in the Wikipedia store
I've made some merchandise for the Wikipedia store based on this article: [www.cafepress.com/wikipedia/2585635 Bacon number] section. Let me know what you think on the meta page. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 01:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Six Degrees of Separation-Talk: Bacon number: Source is undesireable(s), such as Dungeons & Dragons games, blame for historical pocs/plagues on "smelly cat" identity, movement itself in six degrees to one(s) at cusp or "rim", noting grasses through all "behind" can speech/oracle. The most fun is at this point is where mathmatical philosophy begins games. The Oracle Kevin Bacon wishing for positive, superior, unsurmountables to permeate "rim" does not constitute more of the previous/exist for grasses. In front of speech/oracle is game... example squares game, which is very similar to a chess board light squares hexigoning black squares, or, color game, which is very similar to Barney Generational (1989-1994 birthed)'s Mighty Morphine Power Rangers. As a parental, I am Mighty Morphine Power Ranger Orange-game. It is not an overrun of grasses as they do not participation. Remaining at the cusp/"rim" entry to the game(s) requires "serve" of game by one, such as myself, in play, and caring to come near enough to "rim" to return and selective to serve, or not, to grasses; very good positive forward attitude. Anything else about my Unipolar individuality, such as stone/Christian does not matter in the decision to "return"; I maintain it is about the woman. In this endorsing, USA Iwant custody of my children/I want my child(ren), in my case, only. It is similar to grasses getting a boat and going upon FIRST Intelligence/FIRST Nation of People's of Earth's ocean(s) (noting not plankton) and/or Eretheral Intelligence/Eretheral Nation of People's air/atmosphere. In grasses the boat has been removed as Fusion Citizen in Cube Country is possible, has been found, in fact, in oracles, such as Kevin Bacon. Annie —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anniekapn (talk • contribs) 17:19, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Calculating a Bacon Number
I'm trying to calculate my own Bacon Number. The best link seems to be Nick Jameson but he's not listed in the Oracle of Bacon. He definitely does have a Bacon Number since people in "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" do. How does one reasonably do this calculation? Frotz 18:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Dilbert
Shouldn't the Dilbert cartoon where Ratbert was making a joke based on this system be mentioned? He didn't directly apply the Bacon number system, but he linked someone to someone named Kevin, who eats bacon (referring to the person in a similar way). I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm sure I've seen that comic somewhere in Scott Adam's work.

Self-referencing Definition
The definition uses the term "Bacon number" to define "Bacon number". This is somewhat like defining "square root" as "the square root of a number" without explaining all of the steps in computing the square root. I suggest that the definition needs intermediate steps in the explanation of the algorithm, as follows:

The computation of a Bacon number for X is a "shortest path" algorithm. It involves computing the Bacon number for all film actors who X has acted with:
 * If X has appeared in a movie with Bacon, X's Bacon number is 1
 * If X does not have a Bacon number of 1 (hasn't appeared in a Bacon movie) but has appeared in a movie with someone who has, X's Bacon Number is 2
 * If X does not have a Bacon number of 2, the computation continues, examining all actors with whom X has been in a movie. The Bacon number of X is 1 plus the lowest Bacon number of all actors who have appeared in a movie with X.

Note that N is 0 if X is Kevin Bacon.

-- Gekritzl 19:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge with the Six Degrees of Bacon article
The result was merge into Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. -- Tevildo (talk) 13:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favor of this merge and will probably do it myself in a couple of days unless someone objects and has a compelling argument as to why it shouldn't be a subsection of the other article. Rray 02:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree, there's a lot of redundancy and I don't think there's too much information or too broad a topic for it to necessitate two articles. Gregory j 14:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree, as above, same stuff on both pages. Until people are saying "bacon number" in pop culture then there's no need for this page.Kansaikiwi 08:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC) {{Discussion

Hitler has Bacon Number 2 according to Google
If you Google 'bacon number adolf hitler' you get: Adolf Hitler's Bacon number is 2 Adolf Hitler and Michael Fassbender appeared in Blood Creek. Michael Fassbender and Kevin Bacon appeared in X-Men: First Class.

Michael Fassbender was born after Hitler died and I haven't seen Blood Creek so I was confused by this. Ultimately I figured out from reading the movie's IMDB page that it features archive audio and/or footage of Adolf Hitler, uncredited.

Should this count? I guess this doesn't directly have much to do with the Wikipedia article now that I think of it, but I guess I just don't know where else to mention this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.189.236.119 (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2017 (UTC)