Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - Bacon Numbers

Bacon Numbers

The Bacon number of an actor or actress is the number of degrees of separation he or she has from Bacon, as defined by the game. This is an application of the Erdős number concept to the Hollywood movie industry. The higher the Bacon number, the farther away from Kevin Bacon the actor is.

The computation of a Bacon number for actor X is a "shortest path" algorithm:

• Kevin Bacon has a Bacon number of 0.
• Those actors who have worked directly with Kevin Bacon have a Bacon number of 1.
• If the lowest Bacon number of any actor with whom X has appeared in a movie is N, X's Bacon number is N + 1.

Here is an example, using Elvis Presley:

• Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit (1969) with Edward Asner
• Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon

Therefore Asner has a Bacon number of 1, and Presley (who has never appeared in a film with Bacon) has a Bacon number of 2.

As of 24 June 2011 (2011 -06-24), the highest finite Bacon number reported by the Oracle of Bacon is 8.

Because some people have both Bacon and Erdős numbers due to acting and publications, there are a rare few who have an Erdős–Bacon number, which is defined as the sum of a person's independent Erdős and Bacon numbers.