Talk:List of people by Erdős number

Self-reference again
I've argued in the past that the (subtle, indirect) guidance against adding redlinks must not mention Wikipedia, per WP:SELF. It wasn't until I saw User:David Eppstein's recent edit summaries that I realized that User:RishiAcharya28 had actually added that mention again. When I reverted it, User:XOR'easter reverted my edit. My reading of SELF is that we don't say the articles are on Wikipedia, because that complicates things for derived works. I'm as frustrated as anyone with the ongoing addition of redlinks to this list, but I think this is the wrong solution. Not only do I see it as conflicting with the guideline, but it clearly doesn't stop them anyway. Ntsimp (talk) 19:33, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Removing the word "Wikipedia", as you did, does not remove the reference to Wikipedia (the sentence stating that this list only lists people with Wikipedia articles); it just makes that sentence more difficult to understand. It was not an improvement. Are you arguing that, in a list restricted to entries that have Wikipedia articles, we cannot tell the readers that the list is restricted in this way? That seems unhelpful, more a pedantic overinterpretation of the rules than a useful thing to do. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:47, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I am arguing that the guideline is precisely about using the word Wikipedia. The license allows this list to be re-used in many ways, and the guideline is saying to use portable phraseology. My revert returned the sentence to the way it had been worded for a long time, up until last October. If that's not good enough, surely there's a better way to explain that it's a list of articles rather than a list of people, without running afoul of the guideline. Just saying "Wikipedia" isn't going to stop people from adding redlinks; it never has. Ntsimp (talk) 20:13, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Nothing short of page protection would stop people from adding redlinks. We might as well have the sentence be as clear as possible. And even if the page is mirrored on some other site, it remains true; it is, actually, portable. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:24, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Another relevant guideline is MOS:LISTINTRO which explicitly tells us to describe the scope of a list in its introductory material. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That one specifically says to avoid referencing Wikipedia. I think our situation is one that has been thought of before. Ntsimp (talk) 21:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The scope of this list is, deliberately, people with existing Wikipedia articles. Not saying so would be a disservice to the reader. If that were omitted and the text were copied elsewhere, then the other copy would be a puzzling partial list. Self-reference is probably best to avoid most of the time, but most isn't all. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it is also worth pointing out that WP:SELFREF explicitly states "Similarly, many list articles explicitly state their inclusion criteria in the lead section." and suggests to mark such things as printworthy selfref (that is, a self-reference that is explicitly allowed and would make sense in a print version of the article) rather than removing them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:49, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I just added printworthy selfref, rephrasing the sentence a bit to make it work. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I like this solution. Thank you. Ntsimp (talk) 22:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm glad we found one that works! :-) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:06, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Another method for enforcing blue links is to set up an edit notice, similar to Template:Editnotices/Page/List of web directories. I agree with that self-reference is poor practice --- an edit notice may be more effective. What do other editors think? — hike395 (talk) 08:52, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

XKCD
Are we too respectable to include https://xkcd.com/599/, either here or on the Erdős number page? -- Roger Hui (talk) (Erdős 2) 04:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If it were appropriate, the main article would be the place. But I'm not sure that "XKCD has a good joke on this topic" belongs in an article. Ntsimp (talk) 21:31, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, I wasn't going just say that XKCD has a good joke; I mean to include the XKCD images. But I guess not. -- Roger Hui (talk) 22:06, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Some missing bluelinks of people with Erdős number 1
It seems that all Péter Pál Pálfy (DOI: 10.1016/S0012-365X(98)00325-2), Péter Kiss (mathematician) (DOI: 10.4064/aa-57-3-267-281) and Tarlok Nath Shorey (DOI: 10.4064/aa-30-3-257-265) co-wrote an academic paper with Paul Erdős. Their Wikipedia articles have been created in January 2016, December 2012 and June 2013, respectively. If you agree, please add them to the list. --PKalnai (talk) 07:55, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Added, since the AMS calculator agrees. Lklundin (talk) 11:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Google computer scientists possibly with Erdős number 3?
It seems like Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and their advisor Terry Winograd co-wrote a paper with Rajeev Motwani, who is already mentioned here as having EN = 2. The paper is "What can you do with a Web in your Pocket" from 1998 published in "IEEE Data(base) Engineering Bulletin". The question is if it can be considered as research collaboration in the required sense. The paper is indexed in Microsoft Academic (2398953749) and dblp (BrinMPW98), however, it is missing in Mathematical Reviews or zbMATH. If you have an opinion on this, please share. --PKalnai (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This paper clearly counts. I added them. Note that Winograd shows up as #3 on the calculator too. Ntsimp (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Erdös number 2
I have Erdös distance TWO through Prasad Tetali, who is distance ONE. The article is

A not on expected hitting times for birth and death processes, Statistics and Probability Letters 30 (2) 119-125 (1996).

Cheers,

José Luis Palacios Electrical and Computer Engineering Department The University of New Mexico — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.123.90.144 (talk) 19:59, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * We don't list people here unless there is already a separate Wikipedia article about them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * So I don't exist because I don't have a Wikipedia article? Well that harshes my mellow a bit.
 * MathSciNet will confirm my Erdos number is two. But the Wikipedia page for me could include several other facts beyond that. For example just recently I was credited by the CEO of one of the most successful quant funds in history as having "taught them investment". You can verify that in the transcript of this recent podcast.
 * https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/series/exchanges-at-goldman-sachs-great-investors/index.html
 * And authorship is a strange way to mark collaboration. The paper that my Erdos number depends on is a result I proved for two colleagues who published it, adding me as a coauthor (without knowing how to get in touch with me for reasons I don't know). So I found out about the paper when reprints arrived in my mailbox. Technically, the address they gave for me in the paper was wrong, it would have been an SEC violation for it to be my correct address. One of the coauthors (Jack Douthett) was a well known musicologist (as well as mathematician) and gave a banjo recital in Carnegie Hall. He was a prominent guitar soloist (noted student of Hector Garcia) and his obituary is in the mathematics literature,
 * https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17459737.2022.2140214
 * and I would think he should have a Wikipedia page along with his Erdos number. And as a student of Roger Entringer, Jack knew Paul Erdos a lot better than many of the people on these Erdos number lists.
 * My most cited result, strangely enough, is not published by me, and is cited by people who have not read it, and it is in the opposite direction of the result they think they are citing. You will be able to check all of those statements by reading this announcement in Rev. Mod. Phys.:
 * https://journals.aps.org/rmp/pdf/10.1103/RevModPhys.57.1115
 * Now that is Jean-Pierre Eckmann and David Ruelle citing me. Not one of my publications, but one of my results. And it is a published result, because they published it. So does that mean David Ruelle has a Mullhaupt number of 1? I would say so. You know, David Ruelle was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences just about the same time as that. Coincidence? Perhaps.
 * Well enough fun. I don't need a Wikipedia page. (Or an Erdos number, either). The reason I support Wikipedia is because important results usually have Wikipedia pages. I am not a result. As long as the results are there. I'm good. 173.68.125.17 (talk) 14:01, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This list is not intended to be comprehensive. If you want to find out who has Erdős number 2, you go to the official list. What we have here is, like all lists on Wikipedia, a list of Wikipedia articles. Ntsimp (talk) 10:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Erdos Number of Moscow
Hello,

I'm relatively new to Wikipedia editing so I'm not sure whether there are policies against this, but recently I added Moscow (U.S.S.R.) as a collaborator with Erdos number 2. The edit was reverted, in my opinion wrongly. This can be confirmed both through MAA MathNet as well as by the following paper due to Conway: A Headache-Causing Problem. Conway is listed with an Erdos number of 1. This also complies with the requirement that we already have a Wikipedia page on everyone we add to the list.

The last question is whether Moscow can be considered a person. While I am not an expert on Russian law, note that in American law there is precedent for municipial personhood in at least a limited fashion. See Holloway for example on a brief introduction to the matter and an argument for full municipial personhood. Due to the fact that Moscow is a person under current legal frameworks at least in certain circumstances and can be confirmed as a second-degree collaborator to Erdos via Conway both directly and through the MAA, and whereas Wikipedia prides itself as being an impartial and correct source of information, I believe the reversion was in error. I would like to find confirmation that there isn't something I'm overlooking here before going back in and editing again.

--Goldenshrike (talk) 19:59, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * this is a "List of people by Erdős number" -- people = human beings, no cities, no universities, no countries, no continents Brienanni (talk) 20:29, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This is, like, a mildly amusing riff on the Conway / Paterson joke, stripped of context in such a way to leave it obscure and unfunny. Next time you tell the story to your math friends, you can end with the coda that you tried to add Moscow to this page and some sourpuss Wikipedia editor gave you a lecture about policies requiring reliable sources and forbidding original research and so on.  But don't add it again. --JBL (talk) 21:33, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I suspect F. D. C. Willard also has a finite Erdős number, fortunately a large enough one that we don't have to worry about whether they qualify for listing here. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Proposed: Remove the Pointless Pagenotice
There is a page notice that says not to include people who do not have a wikipedia entry. I propose that this rule is *backwards*; add people who do not have wikipedia pages, and use the redlinks as an index of people who perhaps *should* have a wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crispincowan (talk • contribs) 22:20, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The consensus not to include those people has been in place far longer than the page notice: it was proposed in 2010, implemented in 2012, and maintained that way since then. Your self-serving reverse proposal is completely impractical. There already exists the Erdos Number Project to list people with EN=1 or EN=2, currently listing 13113 people with EN=2, more than we can reasonably list here. The number of people with EN=3 is I would assume significantly larger than that. Incidentally, although you should of course not create an article about yourself, I suspect that if someone unconnected with you did so, the article would be kept per WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the context. Could the page alert maybe say some of this? I hear your irritation, and suspect that I am far from the first person to trip over this issue. Crispincowan (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The top of the list article says, "There are more than 11,000 people with an Erdős number of two. This is a partial list of authors with an Erdős number of three or less, including only those who have existing Wikipedia articles."
 * The edit notice says: No redlinks, please Warning: Do not edit this page to add names of people unless those names are linked to existing Wikipedia biographies. This list should include only people who have both a Wikipedia article and an Erdős number of three or less. It is not intended to be a complete list of all people with Erdős numbers.
 * What additional guidance do you suggest to help people understand not to add redlinks? Ntsimp (talk) 20:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles about mathematicians used to have Erdős number categories. After a deletion discussion got rid of them, I created this list to replace them. There already exist resources to find out the Erdős number of non-notable people. This list has always been a resource for finding Wikipedia articles. Back when we allowed redlinks to proliferate, the hope was that people would write the articles. Empirically, we know that doesn't work. New articles do get written, but clearly redlinks on this list won't help it happen. Ntsimp (talk) 17:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)