Have you appeared in a movie or TV show with someone who’s acted alongside someone who’s acted with Kevin Bacon?

Have you published a mathematics paper with someone who wrote a proof alongside someone who’s been published for having worked with prolific genius Paul Erdős?

It’s all delightfully, terribly confusing. Frequent Simpsons guests Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan have their numbers (7).

What’s your Erdős–Bacon number?

And can you join us, Gentle Reader, in agreeing that essayist, nobleman, villain, genius, and primitive super-scientist Francis Bacon would surely have the lowest (best) Erdős–Bacon number, were he alive today or in the recent past?

Just imagine Viscount Bacon stridin down the set of Law & Order (Court Clerk With Food On Lip, 1 line), or Dexter (Miami Mel, serial killer who uses power of rational thinking to convince his victims of their unworth). Imagine him whipping out the gilt cellie and dialing up K-Bacon, just because he can…

“Whattup, Kev Beezy.” “Nuthin, Frank—whattup with you.” “Just publishin a proof with a prolific math genius.” “Word to that, lunch later?” “No doubt, tapas or bust.” “And we never bust!” [Francis hangs up on the clod.]

(&c.)

Viscount St. Alban, Original Ruff Rider: