Did you hear the dramatic drums in the title above? It wasn't easy getting those kettle drums in the TimeBlimp server room... We have reached the end of our journey, the Galactic Core, the exact spot where the Big Bang started, the Center of the Universe. Only three people to date (so far) stands on this spot, people who can be linked directly to the great mathematician Paul Erdos, to the ubiquitous (and sharp-nosed) actor Kevin Bacon, and to the founders of heavy metal Black Sabbath.
He's the man. If you've heard of him at all, you won't be in the least surprised to hear about this additional accolade. Feynman is a world-famous scientist, Nobel laureate, and probably the best American-born-and-raised physicist of all time, and so it's no surprise that many members of the Cult of Feynman figured out his Erdos-Bacon number long ago. He was an oversize colorful character in a world of unflaggingly dull people (physicists, that is) -- you only have to see how much shelf space is devoted to him in your typical bookstore's science section to understand the collective crush all of us in the physics community have on him. Besides discovering Quantum Electrodynamics, he was an accomplished drummer, world explorer, synesthete, artist, ladies man, and prescient visionary on nanotechnology and quantum computing. Oh, and he was the one who figured out why the Space Shuttle Challenger was lost.
Feynman has an Erdos number of 3, through coauthorships with Metropolis (a mathematician who lived in an ice fortress at the North Pole) and then Stan Ulam, a close friend of Erdos. Not surprising, considering even other physicists were blown away by his math skills.
Feynman appeared in the movie Anti-Clock in 1980, also starring Tony Tang, who was in Snatch (2000) with Brad Pitt, who was in Sleepers (1996) with Kevin BLT-minus-lettuce-and-tomato, for a grand total Bacon number of 3. You remember Tony Tang, of course, as "Spanky Wu" from the hit One Way Love from 2005. Anti-Clock is apparently some experimental art film that tries to be "deep", in other words the exact antithesis of what Feynman stood for. An odd way to get yourself a Bacon number, but fair's fair.
Sabbath Number
Here's where I earn my TimeBlimp salary (hint: $0), as I've tracked down a link between Feynman and Black Sabbath. Feynman took up drumming as a lark but became quite accomplished, to the point where he performed professionally here and there -- he was particularly proud in these instances to be hired solely on the basis of his drumming skill, rather than just as a novelty professor-on-the-drums act. He also became fascinated with the obscure central-Asian country Tanu Tuva, a tiny country just north of Mongolia that was absorbed by the Soviet Union decades ago. The Tuvans are famous for their throat singing, an absolutely bizarre and haunting indigenous musical style, and the Neil Diamond of Tuvan throat singing is a man named http://www.ondar.com/. Feynman's drumming and chanting appears on Ondar's album "Back Tuva Future, the Adventure Continues", which has to be the coolest album of all time, sight unseen. (Or, sound unheard, I guess).
Now that we've established the link to the most obscure recording of all time, the hard part is done. It turns out that Bela Fleck (of banjo fame) had Ondar guest appear on his album Outbound, and as we all know (don't we?), Bela Fleck guest appears on a Bruce Hornsby album. From Bruce Hornsby, we can follow the chain of musical collaborations to Jerry Garica, Bob Dylan, Anton Fig, Ace Frehley, finally to Eric Singer, who was briefly a drummer for Sabbath in the mid-eighties. This gives Richard Feynman a Sabbath number of eight, and a combined Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number of fourteen. Whew, I am spent.
If by chance you've already heard of any of this crap, you've probably heard of Natalie Portman, probably the most famous person with an Erdos number.
Bacon Number: Is there any doubt? She starred in "New York, I Love You" with the Baconator himself, giving her a coveted Bacon number of Uno.
Erdos Number: Apparently, Ms. Portman is uhhh, smart and stuff -- she passed on attending the red carpet for the premiere of Star Wars Episode 1 to study for her high school exams. She also got herself a coauthorship on a psychology paper while an undergrad at Harvard that nets her an Erdos number of five.
Sabbath Number: The weakest link here is her shameful lack of a professional music career -- I mean, what the hell? How lazy can you get? Get going on that pop music career, Portman! If that is your real name! (hint: it isn't.) She has starred in several music videos, but that's not good enough -- you can't sneak your way to the Center of the Universe. More promising, she was a preteen member of the World Patrol Kids, an ersatz Menudo for the save-the-earth crowd. ("Ersatz Menudo" would be a fantastic band name, someone get to work on that.) If you're feeling inferior to Ms. Portman, pick yourself up a bit by checking out the World Patrol Kids' video on youtube, where you'll discover it wasn't only your adolescence that was awkward. But we can do even better -- she recently guested on The Lonely Planet's brilliant comedy album "Incredibad" on the song "Natalie's Rap", her debut in Gangsta Rap. Funny, I would have put my money on a Tom Waits' cover to be her intro to music. This gives her a Sabbath number of Seven, and therefore a combined Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number of Thirteen!
Despite my man-crush on Richard Feynman, I'm quite happy that he's not actually the person at the exact center of the universe. That person is Brian May, who is none other than the lead guitarist for the legendary rock band Queen. Yes, the man who brought the world the brilliant guitar solo in “We Will Rock You”, also happens to be a PhD in astrophysics. His fame is such that the Bacon and Sabbath numbers are absolutely trivial, and recently another intrepid researcher has tracked down his Erdos number.
Sabbath Number: Come on, do you doubt that a member of Queen doesn’t have a Sabbath Number? As befitting his Rock-God status, Brian May has a Sabbath number of Uno – he played on Black Sabbath’s “Headless Cross” album, and also has collaborated with drummer Cozy Powell in his own Brian May Band. Cozy, as you should know, was once a Black Sabbath drummer.
Bacon Number: Dr. May shows up as “Brian May (II)” on the Oracle of Bacon, and as a member of Queen, his guitar playing has appeared in countless movies (such as Highlander). Not good enough, you say? Needs to actually be an actor in a movie, you say? Alright, then how about his voice work as “Massed peasant chorus & Chamberlain” in the 1996 movie “The Adventures of Pinocchio”? His tour de force as a massed peasant chorus is now the de facto standard by which all massed-chorus voice-over work is judged, and also gives him a Bacon number of three (via Kevin Dorsey and Laura Ceron).
Erdos Number: Ah, yes… my original research into Dr. May's Erdos number (consisting of googling his coauthors for a couple hours while watching SportsCenter) turned up nothing. Lucky for me, and for the world of science, Ross Churchley (a math student with a blog any fan of Timeblimp would appreciate) has tracked down a path of coauthors from Dr. May's astrophysics publications back to Erdos, yielding an Erdos number of seven. This gives him a combined Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number of eleven!
Conclusions
So, what are we to make of our discovery? Aside from devising a measure of human accomplishment that manages to rank Richard Feynman #3, Natalie Portman #2, and a rock guitarist #1? Hopefully, we are also encouraging a new crop of young scientists / musicians / actors to get themselves a seat at the Center of the Universe. How hard could it be?