God Plays Dice wrote an interesting blog post asking whether Barack Obama has Erdos number.

I gave a light-hearted talk about six degrees of separation / Kevin Bacon / Paul Erdos at our majors’ dinner a couple of years ago. It was fun. It is truly remarkable how tightly connected we all are. Here are some personal connections that I found then (the Obama entry is new, obviously).

Erdos

My Erdos number: 4 (see the MathSciNet collaboration distance calculator)

Presidents

George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush

• 4: One of my college roommate’s friends went to Colby College with and was a friend of Billy Bush
• (now 3: using the path through Obama, below)

Bill Clinton

• 3: My father was the doctor on call when then presidential hopeful and former Clinton-era Attorney General Janet Reno collapsed in Rochester, NY in 2002.

Barack Obama

• 3: My friend Victoria Sams’ sister has been filming a documentary about Barack Obama for the last four years
• 2: Obama’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, taught at Dickinson (where I teach) last year and lived across the street from us

Google founders

Sergey Brin

• 2: His father, Misha Brin (a mathematician at the University of Maryland) has attended talks I’ve given

Larry Page

• 2: My friend went to high school with him in Lansing, MI

Weird

• It turns out that I’ve worn the shoes of a famous punk-rock pioneer and a famous author has worn my shoes. Don’t ask… I promise it is nothing creepy.