One’s Erdos
number is calculated as the minimum distance between oneself and Erdos using co-authorship to measure distance in the
canonical manner.
For example, at this
moment, my Erdos number is at most 3.
Here is a proof from the
Journal of Graph Theory:
1.
D. McQuillan and R.B. Richter, “On 3-Regular Graphs Having Crossing Number at
Least 2”, Journal of Graph Theory 18 (8) (1994), pp. 831-839.
2. R.B. Richter and J. Siran, “The Crossing number of K_{3,n}
in a Surface”, Journal of Graph Theory 21 (1996), pp. 51-54.
3. E. Bertram, P. Erdos, J. Siran, P. Horak, and Z. Tuza, “Local and
Global Average Degree in Graphs and Multigraphs”,
Journal of Graph Theory 18 (1994) 647-661.
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It appears as though my Erdos number has been stuck at 3 for almost two decades. So
I’ve investigated methods to reduce it.
A good way to lower your Erdos number (recommended) is to work hard, ask good
mathematical questions, and collaborate in a positive mathematically enriching
manner with excellent mathematicians. Then you just hope the rest takes care of
itself.
Other approaches
(definitely not recommended) have been
suggested, but have not been proven to be effective.
There’s also the “Erdos number of the second kind” which restricts the
eligibility of publications to those with only 2 authors. The 3rd
publication above has more than 2 authors, and so it does not assist in
calculating this number. Still I have an “Erdos
number of the second kind” of at most 5. Here is a proof:
1. Dan McQuillan and
R. Bruce Richter, “Equality in a Result of Kleitman”,
J. Comb. Theory
Ser. A 65(2) (1994), pp. 330-333.
2. Zhicheng Gao
and R. Bruce Richter, “2-walks in Circuit Graphs” J. Comb. Theory Ser. B 62(2)
(1994), pp. 259-267.
3. Zhicheng Gao
and Nicholas Wormald, “Sharp Concentration of the
Number of Submaps in Random Planar Triangulations”, Combinatorica 23(3) (2003), Pp. 467-486.
4. Laszlo A. Szekely and Nicholas Wormald, “Bounds
on the Measureable Chromatic Number of R^n”, Discrete
Mathematics 75(1-3) (1989), pp. 343-372.
5. Paul Erdos
and Laszlo A. Szekely, “Counting Bichromatic
Evolutionary Trees”, Discrete Applied Mathematics 47(1) (1993), pp. 1-8.