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I wonder what Timothy Carr looks like if you put lipstick on him.....

James H. Fowler
http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu



On Sep 15, 2008, at 12:29 AM, Ilan Talmud wrote:

> My Erdős # is 4:
>
> me-Meir Yaish-John Goldthope- Sir David Roxbee Cox - Paul Erdős
>
> Yet I have more an interesting Israeli path distance:
> The Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert, who is accused of at least four counts
> of corruption - is the uncle of my ex wife's cousin's spouse.
> The Former Israeli President, Moshe Katzav, who is accused of
> several counts of rape and sexual harassment, is married to my
> father's second cousin.
>
> Actually, I have a high betweenness centrality between their
> respective local clusters.
>
> I feel like a member of the ruling family in a second world
> country. ;-) :'(
>
> Already in 1984, Gabi Weimann demonstrated, using a small world
> experiment, that the average path distance in Israel is shorter
> than the American, due to Israel's higher density and transitivity.
>
> And James, if you did not kiss Timothy Carr your Palin number does
> not count....
>
> ציטוט James Fowler:
>> ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****
>>
>> As many of you know, starting in the 1960s, mathematicians had fun
>> at parties (no, really) by trying to figure out their Erdős
>> number. This referred to their minimum collaboration distance
>> between themselves and the extremely prolific mathematician Paul
>> Erdős -- Erdős has number 0, people who coauthored a paper with
>> him have number 1, their coauthors have number 2, and so on.
>>
>> My own Erdős number is at most 4 via at least two network paths:
>>
>> me - Michael Laver - Norman Schofield - Craig Tovey - Paul Erdős
>> me - Bernard Grofman - Norman Schofield - Craig Tovey - Paul Erdős
>>
>> Well, today I learned from my neighbors that Timothy Carr, the man
>> from whom I bought my current house, was leaning towards voting for
>> Obama until McCain announced his vice-presidential nominee (stay
>> with me here). But in what must have been a stunned voice, he said
>> "I can't vote for Obama now -- I kissed Sara Palin when I was in
>> high school!" (Needless to say, Carr is from Alaska)
>>
>> So, astonishingly, this seems to give me a "Palin number" of at
>> most 2 (though unless I am really drunk, I'm pretty sure it's not 0
>> or 1):
>>
>> me - Timothy Carr - Sara Palin
>>
>> I bought my house from a man who kissed Sara Palin.
>>
>> Maybe even more remarkably, if we stretch the rules on what
>> constitutes a "collaboration", it gives Palin an Erdős number of at
>> most 6. Compare that with Natalie Portman whose Erdős number is at
>> most 5 from her Harvard psych undergrad days.
>>
>> All sorts of interesting questions arise.
>>
>> *In high school was Palin as prolific in "collaborating" as Erdős
>> was at publishing?
>>
>> *Could this be a factor behind "the Palin bump?"
>>
>> *Are there any shorter paths between Paul Erdős and Sara Palin?
>>
>> *And what is *your* Palin number?
>>
>> James H. Fowler
>> http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
> --
> Ilan Talmud, Ph.D.
> Senior Lecturer
> Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
> University of Haifa
> Phones: 972-4-8240992 (office direct)
> 972-4-8240995 / 8249505 (secretaries)
> (cell) 972-522-220914 Fax: 972-4-8240819
>
> http://soc.haifa.ac.il/~talmud/
> http://soc.haifa.ac.il/community
> Call me free: http://www.jajah.com/Ilantalmud
>
>


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