Wednesday May 26, 2004

The Number that Really Matters to Mathematicians

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a flap created by Michigan consultant William A. Tozier when he tried to auction his services as an academic collaborator on eBay. What’s great here, however — at least for fans of couldn’t-make-them-up subcultural details — is why his offer was so controversial. It turns out Tozier was trying to pimp out his “Erdös number.” Apparently this is not done.

Named for Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös (pictured), the number represents how far removed one is from Erdös himself. Someone who collaborated on a paper with him, for example, would have an Erdös number of 1, while a collaborator of a collaborator would have an Erdös number of 2, and so on. Tozier, who has collaborated on only one academic paper, says he has an Erdös number of 4. Therefore, anyone who collaborated on a paper with him would suddenly get an Erdös number of 5.

Spanish mathematician Jose Burillo (Erdös number = 3) doesn’t think this is at all funny, and he placed a high bid “to stop the mockery this person is doing of the paper/journal system.” In other words, the world of international mathematics is just like where you work, but with numbers — trivial, irrelevant, socially-stratifying numbers.