Talk:Elon Musk in popular culture

Self-evident observations regarding collaboration ?
We have a List of people by Erdős number with no clear procedure for how to actually compute the Erdős number - but the tool maintained by American Mathematical Society seems to be generally accepted.

Similarly, our page on Bacon Number has an external link to, allowing its user to compute a person's collaborative distance with Kevin Bacon.

As such, anyone can convince themselves of the self-evident fact that Elon Musk via Iron Man 2 and co-actor Mickey Rourke has a Bacon Number of 2 (since Rourke co-acts with Bacon in Diner (1982 film) - and apparently per this tool Musk has never/not yet directly acted with Kevin Bacon,

Similarly, one can see that Pardis Sabeti has an Erdős number of 3. Since Musk has (recently) co-authored a paper with Sabeti, it follows self-evidently that Musk has an Erdős number that cannot exceed 4.

Finally, since - in the words of Kevin Bacon acting as Jack Swigert in Apollo 13 (film) - "I can add", Musk has an Erdős–Bacon number which cannot exceed 6.

This raises the question, what is the bar for self-evident information - as opposed to WP:OR?

Without being given the opportunity to consider my above reasoning evidently considered the above to be OR (and reverted my bold edit).

So per WP:BRD and because I think the question could have other, similar applications I solicit opinions from interested editors. Lklundin (talk) 16:24, 23 February 2021 (UTC)


 * It is obvious OR/SYNTH to string together a chain of publications and use them to claim an Erdos number (or a bound for an Erdos number), and likewise for Bacon numbers. This has been hashed out many times in many places, is it necessary for me to dig them up (I hope not, but if necessary I could)?  The correct standard for including a statement that someone has an Erdos number is that there should be a reliable secondary source that comments on the fact that that person has a that Erdos number, and likewise for Bacon numbers.  Separately,  it is pretty annoying that you responded to my two-part edit summary "reverted because [WP policy] and [aesthetic criticism]" while only acknowledging the aesthetic criticism and not the substantive invocation of policy.  (I have not looked at the rest of this article; if its contents are sourced with secondary sources, then I have no objection, but if they are sourced via synth or original research or only to primary sources, that should be removed as non-notable trivia.) --JBL (talk) 20:39, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Readily observable facts are not considered WP:OR. Eg. requiring a citation for "the human hand has 4 fingers and a thumb" is considered abuse of WP:OR. Now, if you can find a citation that says that it's official WP policy that Bacon numbers require an external citation, then I'll voluntarily withdraw my objection. Otherwise, it stands. -- Rei (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * So we've moved from nonresponsive edit summaries to presumptuous pronouncements on what will and won't happen; charming. This is obviously not a matter of WP:CALC, since it requires nontrivial judgements (what is a valid publication for purposes of counting? etc.).  Moreover, once someone has objected, WP:CALC requires that consensus be established that it applies, which is not the case.  Please try to improve the quality of your contributions to this discussion. Here is a list of some past discussions relating to this, going back more than a decade: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.  In all cases, the result was that Erdos or Erdos-Bacon numbers should not be included without adhering to usual sourcing standards; none reached the conclusion that stringing together a bunch of papers is appropriate sourcing for an Erdos number. --JBL (talk) 22:46, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Having now looked more carefully at the article: it is currently the case that every single sentence in the body except the ones just added is attached to a citation of a secondary source that explicitly supports the statement of the sentence. Anyone who wants to include Musk's Erdos or Bacon number should similarly find a secondary source that supports the claim being made. --JBL (talk) 23:03, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Let me try to address these concerns:
 * Our List of people by Erdős number lists many Erdős numbers (up to EN=3), including that of Pardis Sabeti. Per the text with that list, the EN can be determined by the distance calculator maintained by American Mathematical Society. The same standard is followed here. However, since this page may be visited by readers and editors unaware of the AMS tool, I have added a source citation to the AMS-tool incl. a quote.
 * The AMS tool determines the Erdős number by finding a specific path to Erdős. However, for all but the smallest Erdős numbers it is non-trivial to prove the non-existence of a shorter path. As such the vast majority of Erdős numbers should come with the caveat 'at most', i.e. that a smaller one may exist (e.g. due to a recently published paper, such as the one cited here). As such this caveat is useless and I have removed it here.
 * As for the quoting of a WP:PRIMARY: "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." Our journal citation template directly supports the enumeration of the authors - even with wiki-links to their biographies, so its is definitely a straightforward, descriptive statement verifiable by any literate person that two such persons have in fact co-authored the quoted article.
 * Per WP:CALC it is permitted to use basic arithmetic to conclude that the EN=3 of Sabeti implies that Musk has EN=4. This self-evident step is not implied, but made explicitly clear in the text.
 * For the Bacon Number, that page also lists a calculator, similar in function to that of AMS's EN-calculator, used in the same manner. As above, I have added a source citation incl. a quote.
 * For the combined Erdős–Bacon number again simple arithmetic applies, 4 + 2 = 6.
 * I have made sure that the whole text is written such that the stated information is clearly attributable to its relevant source, so e.g. the WP:CALC-based info stands on its own.
 * Lastly, I will point out that this whole article concerns trivia - and as such less stringent application of editing standards is permissive.
 * I hope this helps. Lklundin (talk) 14:59, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

He appeared in movie Bombshell (2019)
He appeared in movie Bombshell (2019 film) @51:17 into the movie. Please mention that. Rizosome (talk) 03:06, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Addition of this to the article would require a WP:RS. Feel free to provide one. Thanks. Lklundin (talk) 07:14, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Recentism ?
The article has been tagged with recentism. Given that he has emerged as famous in recent years, and the article covers things from 2010, is this really a problem. What is missing from before 2010 ? -- Beardo (talk) 03:12, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree - it's ridiculous. I removed it. ~ HAL  333  22:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

He is referenced in 2022's Moonfall.
Elon Musk seems to be a heeo of "Dr." K.C. Houseman. 98.97.57.93 (talk) 05:36, 19 May 2022 (UTC)