Talk:List of people by Erdős number/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Column Breaks

I propose to use multiple columns within each group of people with the same number. This is achieved by bracketing the group with {{Multicol}} and {{Multicol-end}} and interspersing it with {{Multicol-break}}. Roger Hui (talk) 18:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

This would certainly improve the layout of this long, narrow list. An alternative would be to add an explanatory note next to each person, giving a few notable details. Ntsimp (talk) 18:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Navigation

It would be nice if each letter were its own editable subsection. Could someone who understands Wikipedia:Template messages/Compact tables of contents please fix this? Ntsimp (talk) 19:15, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand compact tables of contents, but I made them into triple-equal sections — is that what you meant? Feel free to revert if this causes problems. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:39, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I am about to revert it as the new TOC is pretty unsightly. A compact TOC as in Wikipedia:Template messages/Compact tables of contents would be good but I don't know how to do separate ones for EN1 and EN2. Roger Hui (talk) 20:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Armand Borel

Ntsimp recently moved Armand Borel from 2 to 3 per the ENP. This is one of those instances where MathSciNet disagrees: they list MR 0201394 and MR0037322 as giving a path of length two through S. Chowla. In this case I agree with ENP: the first citation from MathSciNet appears to be merely a book to which Borel and Chowla were both independent contributors, not a true joint publication. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Noted Erdos numbers

This is simpliy the list of people with some Erdos number (Read the page). Please do not try to delete names without verifying or change the basic purpose of this article. There is nothing like who is notable and who is not notable. How someone got Erdos number is more importnat than what you want to identify him or her. This site is for professional people with good attitude and respect for others. If you do not agree, it is good you remove yourself from this listing and go away from editing. There are people who do not want to have websites for them. The entry will remain red as you have seen for many.

We should concentrate on our work than playing with someone's name for no reasons.

- At this state I'll remain Annynymous (IP address is there), but I have Erdos number (Does this number really speak about your greatness?). It is just a honor to Professor Paul Erdos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rnaik100 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it a coincidence that, soon after you added some names yesterday, an anonymous editor added a redlink to someone with a name very similar to your login, R. Naik, which I reverted? In any case: No, this is not a list of all people with Erdos numbers. That would be unmanageably huge and redundant with the lists at the Erdos number project's web site. It is a list of the ones that have articles here, or are notable enough that they should have articles here. Please see WP:RED for our guidelines on when it is acceptable to include redlinks in Wikipedia articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:43, 9 February 2008 (UTC).

Understood now and will be deleting what I have contributed so far. I do not want to get into this where I do not feel comfortable. Who does care for this list? and who does care who is notable (Is it defined or is it your definition ?)? That is an individual opinion. There are people who donot want to write about themselves on internet OR SOMEONE WRITING for them. If someone writes for someone, it is called as notable. (E.g. Professor Shrikhande did not write about himself on WikiPedia. Someone appreciated his contributions and decided to write about him.) By the bye what is your role here?

I have seen different versions of Erdos number on Internet like this. I got Erdos number 2 much before than you got your Erdos number 2. May be I will put it on sale if someone wants to buy it!! I did not find any use of Erdos number being in academia and industry for over 20 years here in the US.

The statement "That would be unmanageably huge and redundant with the lists at the Erdos number project's web site" is difficult to believe when we have abundant resources on internet. Any way you are the incharge for this and you do what is good for you sir. I will step back.

RNaika100

One correction: I am not in charge of anything here; it is run by consensus. But we have been through this issue of how inclusive to be several times before, and the guidelines are I think pretty clear on this issue. I agree that the numbers are not especially useful, but that doesn't prevent some people finding them amusing. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

You wrote that you are not incharge of this? Then why are you coming up with with such rules of yours for consensus? Let them come up with their rules. This is America; It's individual's choice! Did you convince your definition of "notable" to them? You must define first in few lines what is notable on this site. Are you consultant to Consensus? On this site I see that several of the things are not written very clearly. In a corporate word, webistes are not offered to Employees. I'm also in academia, but it is my choice if I want to use the space given to me. RNaik100. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rnaik100 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

A useful place to start for learning about "such rules" is Wikipedia's five pillars. The rules for notability are covered under the first pillar, as is the fact that The part about consensus is in the fourth pillar. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

I read them.

I urge you to discuss what you hear from people like me with "consessus" entity you refered to. Why did not (Wikipedia or Consesus) clean up all those with the redlinks (e. g Crispin St. J. A. Nash-Williams with Erdos number 2 but does not have a artcle on Wikipedia)? Can we delete them without violating the rules there in? Otherwise it contradicts your statements.

How do you call yourself as "notable" while Crispin St. J. A. Nash-Williams was much superior to you in academia. (this is my view). Is it bacause there is an artcle about you on Wikipedia that you wrote yourself about you?

Again it is not anyone who wants to put their name on Wikipedia. Remember they are not crazy to be there. They did not put whatever they liked - they (or someone) just tried to register their names (10 to 15 characters)on a site that was available to them. Remember they are the ones with Erdos number 1, 2 and 3. Refer to " Wikipedia is not a website for anyone to put whatever they want on it" what you wrote above. If you call them "anyone", then who you are. We need here understanding the American values.

The ones with Erdos number 1 are the eligible ones to be here because they actually met and worked with Erdos. Erdos number greater than 1 are amusing as you wrote and may be deleted immdiately.

-RNaik100

I don't call myself notable. Somebody else created the article about me, and nowadays I try to edit it only in cases when there is something blatantly wrong with it to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. I agree with you that Nash-Williams should have an article, but I haven't found the time yet to do it properly myself, although at one point I did go through the other articles mentioning him and make sure that their redlinks to him were consistently formatted to make it easier to make an article for him in future. Apparently, nobody else has found the time to write an article here about him either. As for whether having an Erdos number of 1 automatically means we should have an article on someone and not having that number means we should delete the article, I disagree. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello,

Notable people do not try to edit out the artcles about them. They do not worry much about what is up there. Their accomplishments speak for themselves.

It looks like that you might have asked someone indirectly to write about you to favour yourself; and that is what others might guess by glancing the history of the article about you. You are to me like a mediocre young mathematician.

Professor Shrikhande is a celebrated mathematician and the article about him justfies it.

I looks like you deleted the names without understanding what those Matematicians are. If I were you, I would have fired myself from this job of editing rather than doing that kind of thing. Also I believe that you have not understood the meaning of “Notable” on Wikepedia. I urge you to read it again rather than giving your own interpretation. Discuss this with the other Editors and give a new positive approach. Let me know how many of the readers and the editors agree with you. How about creating a poll on this? One of the editors praised me for adding all those names (my co-authrors and friends who are as good as you or better because I know their work.), but you deleted them.

I urge you to delete immediateley all those redlinks if you want to support your arguments. Otherwise someone may read it as biased.

Finally, tell me what is the difference between you and me as far as our work on Wikepedia is concerned? It means that I have a right to delete (edit) your name and the artcle when I have perciveed you as not “notable”., but I hate doing that.

Thanks for the opportunity to know you. I respect you as a young Mathematician who came like me from a far land.

Rnaik100 R. Naik 13:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Another Wikipedia guideline for you to read: assume good faith. Also, for you to compare: Shrikhande's, Nash-Williams', your, and my publication records in Google scholar. I realize that MathSciNet might be a better choice of database for mathematicians, but my own work is not primarily in the math literature and the pattern there is in any case not very different. The point is that for Shrikhande and Nash-Williams I can see clear evidence of notability just from the Google scholar citation counts. For you I can't, and would need some other justification for having an article here. That's why I removed the redlink. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not ask about me; I asked about what is the difference between you and me as Editors on Wikipedia. (Anyone can be an editor - Do you and I fit for that job - no). I said if I wish I will delete your name because you are a mediocre to many including me, but I would not delete. I know what I'm. People write junk papers to show that they have many publications. Think about your contribution to mathematics for mankind and the society. How much can be applied to?

I'm arguing for what you did to otheres(my friends, my co-authors and others) who are superior to you - You deleted their names without understanding them - You are the only one deleting (doing destructive work) the names on that site (Check the history). You will leran your mistakes. You still do not understand the meaning of "Notable" and your mistakes. The notable described there has a general meaning. It was not redefined for this case. Please reply just what is aked for; Did you check with the other editors (Employees of Wikipedis)?

RNaik100 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rnaik100 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

This conversation is going nowhere. I've tried to be patient but I see no point in continuing it. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Mr. David Eppstein,

I enjoyed very much this discussion with you . I believe it was healthy one. Finally I became “Notable” after arguing with a “Notable”.

Let us shake hands.

R. Naik 18:19, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Raj 11:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rnaik100 (talk • contribs)

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Untitled

Thanks Mikkalai and Ntsimp. Pete St.John (talk) 17:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Self-reference

Pomte is right; the link to Wikipedia:Wikipedians by Erdős number is an inappropriate self-reference. "Any link in an article in the main namespace that links to one in the Wikipedia namespace" is one of the first examples given in WP:ASR. Ntsimp (talk) 15:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the section. Ntsimp (talk) 14:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

comment clarification?

What does the comment "Noted Erdos number section will be deleted from the discussion page. It is a done case - No more conversations on this" from R Naik? is this a language issue or am I missing something? Thanks. Pete St.John (talk) 18:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

It refers to the discussion now on the talk archive page. As Naik said in that edit summary, discussion was finished, but deletion would have been the wrong way of closing it off. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

ah thanks, that's clear, I had misconstrued the wording. Pete St.John (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 19:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Sine it is said not to edit archives, here I' fixing it.

It read there as " In a corporate word, webistes are not offered to Employees. I'm also in academia, but it is my choice if I want to use the space given to me. RNaik100. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rnaik100 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)"

It should be "In a corporate world, webistes are not offered to employees. I'm also in academia, but it is my choice if I want to use the webspace given to me there. RNaik100. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rnaik100 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC).

Changed RNaik100 to Raj 23:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Higher numbers and verifiability

When I created this list I included only Erdős numbers 0–2, since they're what I mostly cared about and can be immediately verified from the ENP lists. After an anonymous editor created the #3 section, I added some people listed on the ENP site as having Erdős number 3. Since then, a number of others have been added, some by me, without an obvious way to verify them. I'm not really sure what to do about that. There are still plenty of articles that were included in the old categories for numbers 3–6 and that have not been added to this list—but again, what about citing sources? Does a list such as this, with little actual article prose, need citations? If so, how shall we go about it? And how high should the numbers on the list go? Ntsimp (talk) 22:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

That would have been an advantage of the category (as opposed to the list); the notability is defined as usual for the article. Anyway for the list I'd hope for new addtions to include citations. If the subject has an article, I wouldn't care how high the number is, and if not, then I think about 3 is the cutoff for notability in se? Pretty subjective, but "2" just means "coauthors of Erdos", so at least 3 for the networking quality of erdos numbers to be relevant. Also Carlitz is only 3; and that actually has some historical interest since they were contemporaries in related fields and both reputed for their proliferation. Pete St.John (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I always added the path I have in mind to justify the upper bound on the Erdos number in he edit summary, as I did when adding an article to the category (before they were deleted).Billlion (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. Pete St.John (talk) 20:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think there are some errors in the extraction, or else there are errors at the linked document http://www.oakland.edu/enp/Erdos1. For example, that list shows Ernst P Specker as having index 1, but he does not appear on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.107.91.99 (talk) 00:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You misunderstand. There are many thousands of people with Erdős numbers 1–3 whose names are not on this list. It's not intended to be exhaustive, only to include those who either already do or (in a few cases) eventually should have their own Wikipedia articles. However, I think Specker probably does belong on the list. Ntsimp (talk) 06:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Most of the numbers can be verified by those with access to MathSciNet via its Collaboration Distance search (under the Author search), for which distance to Erdős is the default search. --Delirium (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this doesn't require any special access; it's a public web site. However, it counts many things as joint publications, such as joint editorships or even joint obituaries! There are also those whose shortest legitimate path to Erdős passes through a paper not found in that particular database. So, it's certainly a great resource, and referenced at the top of the article. But it's insufficient. Ntsimp (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Irving S. Reed

Irving S. Reed just got moved from the number 3 to number 2 section. Neither the ENP nor the MathSciNet search confirms his number is 2, but the user who made the change, Giftlite, provided this citation:

T. K. Truong, I. S. Reed, R. G. Lipes, A. L. Rubin, & S. A. Butman, (1984). "Digital SAR processing using a fast polynomial transform". IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. ASSP-32 (2): 419–425. doi:10.1109/TASSP.1984.1164307.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Since Arthur Rubin has Erdős number 1, Reed must have Erdős number 2. Ntsimp (talk) 23:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks valid to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Ari/Eri Jabotinsky

Is Ari Jabotinsky, son of the famous Zionist activist Zeev Jabotinsky, the same person as Eri Jabotinsky listed as an Erdos coauthor in MathSciNet? Ari and Eri are both possible transliterations of the Hebrew name. The thing that troubles me is: Ari got his PhD in 1957 but Eri started publishing in 1946. McKay (talk) 13:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ari Jabotinsky refers to http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=402 which mentions both Zeev Jabotinsky and "PhD in Mathematics from Hebrew University (1957)". I searched for author="Jabotinsky" in the library catalog of the Hebrew University; there was one PhD thesis by "Eri Jabotinsky" from 1955 and nothing for "Ari Jabotinsky", so I guess this must be the PhD thesis of Ari Jabotinsky (the difference between 1955 and 1957 might be just publication vs. graduation?). The English title of the thesis is "Theory of iteration". Now using this information it's possible to find http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01831113 which is a survey on "iteration theory". This survey + MathSciNet clearly shows that the PhD thesis ("Jabotinsky 55" in the survey) is by the same person who has joint publications with Erdos (actually, the survey even refers to "P. Erdos and E. Jabotinsky"). So everything seems to match. A confirmation by someone who has first-hand knowledge would be nice, though. — Miym (talk) 14:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Netanyahu curiosity

Newly added Elisha Netanyahu has EN=1. Nathan Netanyahu has EN=2 (through Ruth Silverman). My understanding is that they are close relatives (at least, I've been told that Nate N. is a cousin or something of the Israeli PM, and Elisha's article says the PM is his nephew). But they don't seem to have worked together and it may be that their collaboration distance is the sum of their EN's.

Not something for the article content, as there's no reliable sourcing, I just thought it was interesting. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Moshe Vardi

Moshe Vardi is currently listed with #2, but I don't think this is correct. He is not on the Erdös Number Project list of authors with EN 2. The MathSciNet collaboration distance calculator shows a distance of 2, but the shown path is not valid: it's a path via Joel H. Spencer based on the following publication: http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=2374364. However, that's not a joint publication by Vardi and Spencer, but rather a collection of texts, including one written by Spencer and another one written by Kolaitis and Vardi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.230.166.41 (talk) 12:27, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you're right. I moved him to #3. Ntsimp (talk) 16:20, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

3 provided by Jefferey D. Ullman (http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/pub/biblio.pdf)

Recently added redlinks - March 2010

For discussion:

#1

Gregory A. Freiman - home page.

#2

#3

Under current ~~policy~~ [consensus], these should all be removed. (These have been removed, until notability is established and an article created. --Jwesley₇₈ 21:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC))

(Section started by: Jwesley₇₈ 19:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC))

about redlinks for EN 2

According to the Erdős number project, the counts of Erdős numbers are:

      Erdös number  0  ---      1 person
      Erdös number  1  ---    504 people
      Erdös number  2  ---   6593 people
      Erdös number  3  ---  33605 people
      Erdös number  4  ---  83642 people
      Erdös number  5  ---  87760 people
      Erdös number  6  ---  40014 people
      Erdös number  7  ---  11591 people
      Erdös number  8  ---   3146 people
      Erdös number  9  ---    819 people
      Erdös number 10  ---    244 people
      Erdös number 11  ---     68 people
      Erdös number 12  ---     23 people
      Erdös number 13  ---      5 people

There's no way we could include all 6593 people with Erdős number 2 in the article here. I think it would make sense to go a different way:

Use a list of people with Erdős number 1 to add all people with EN 1 to the article, redlinked or bluelinked
Only include bluelinks for the remaining numbers (2 through 13).
Develop a way to cross-check the lists from the EN project against the enwiki page list, to see if we are missing links.

— Carl (CBM · talk) 13:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been bothered by the proliferation of redlinks too. It's a fact, though, that I'm still planning to write articles for all the redlinks I've added myself—though I wouldn't be averse to someone else writing the articles for these (to my mind) definitely notable people (and redlinks are supposed to help motivate people to do that). We surely shouldn't have links for everyone with Erdős number 2, and in fact, there are many people with Erdős number 1 that aren't WP-notable. We've been good about reverting all additions of redlinks to the #3 section, but I don't take out redlinks added to 1 or 2 if they check out in the sources. And we decided a while back to avoid numbers above 3 due to verifiability problems. In a nutshell, I prefer the status quo to your proposal, but I would be open to ideas for pruning the redlinks that seem unlikely to generate articles. Ntsimp (talk) 14:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Any policy must be emphasized in the text description of the name sections as I did for #3 today. It can not be the situation that the reader looking the lists is not informed about the exact mission of the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.179.145.66 (talk) 10:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The lead section of the article says, "This list includes researchers with Erdős numbers from 0 to 3 who are notable in their own right." So the people listed here would be eligible to have an article about them on Wikipedia even if they were not coauthors with Erdos. I think this is stated clearly enough, and does not need to be reiterated within the subsections. Jwesley₇₈ 11:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Redlinks - Erdős #3

There appears to be a disagreement about whether redlinks should be allowed for those listed under #3. I agree with the current policy and the way it's managed, but thought I should create a section to discuss it here. Jwesley₇₈ 19:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It appears this decision has been in place for some time, and is consistent with other Wikipedia policies. Jwesley₇₈ 19:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The question raised here is whether this ~~policy~~ [decision made from consensus] must be explicitly stated in the reader-visible portion of the page. Jwesley₇₈ 19:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC) (-- Updated Jwesley₇₈ 21:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC).)

I can't see any way to make that request (it's not a policy; just the consensus that has developed here) visible without falling afoul of WP:ASR. Besides, it's not relevant to readers, just editors. I thought about just going ahead and making some quick stubs for the few redlinks I care about, then deleting the rest—but I'm not sure that's a good idea, what with all the recent heightened BLP attention. Maybe the status quo, where bold editors add #3 redlinks and get reverted, is the best possible solution? Ntsimp (talk) 20:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm also ok with the status quo. For #1 and #2, the creation of a BLP article should not be done until the editor has time to do so properly. Jwesley₇₈ 21:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

"Besides, it's not relevant to readers, just editors." I don't think so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.179.145.66 (talk) 11:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I added the missed text in the description of the section. It is not enough that the status quo is in the comment only. The reader looking the list has to be informed about the current policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.179.145.66 (talk) 10:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

User 212.179.145.66, I think your recent change of the subsection's title is not in good form. Such a statement would be more approprate as text within the section, but even there it would be considereded "self-referential". Section titles are also supposed to be precise. These policies are discussed here and here. Jwesley₇₈ 10:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious—of what value would it be to tell non-editing readers not to add redlinks to the #3 section? Ntsimp (talk) 13:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

(I agree with the current consensus, but will argue the opposing point.) It's reasonable to expect some readers to wonder why their favorite mathematician "XYZ", with Erdos #3, is not listed here. "XYZ" might meet the notability requirement to have her own biography article, but it simply has not been created yet. The question becomes, should we anticipate ~~users~~ readers questioning why such a prominent mathematician is not listed. Jwesley₇₈ 14:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I've tweaked the explanation of our rough inclusion criteria at the top of the list, and toned down the self-referential explanation (which absolutely must not mention "Wikipedia") at #3. I still don't like making reference to the existence or non-existence of any other article, but maybe this is a workable compromise? Ntsimp (talk) 16:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I've made another tweak. I think we've reached a good compromise, but I wouldn't oppose another tweak or two. Jwesley₇₈ 17:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "this list includes only those who are notable in their own right"

The formulation is not proper, because as far as the Erdős number of a researcher is smaller there is a higher reason to include the researcher into the list. When I put this elaboration into the article, this was inverted on the score of "This should be taken to the talk page." I did not think so, because it is not so even actually: there are many "non-notable" researchers in the lists of #1 and #2. I think (and it is in correspondence with the status quo!) that the criterion has to be more hybrid: notable only for #3, almost notable for #2, but all for #1. If we don't put all researchers of #1 into the list, then the mission of the list will be destroyed. But even in the case you want to discuss this point of view, the actual current state of the list does not give to use the cited phrase. 212.179.145.66 (talk) 18:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you be specific as to which people listed under #1 or #2 are not notable. If they do not meet the requirements listed here then they should probably be removed (regardless of which section they're in). Jwesley₇₈ 18:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The "mission" of the list is not allow people to calculate their own Erdos number. Thus, not all people with Erdos #1 need to be listed. Jwesley₇₈ 18:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

See WP:SAL#Lists of people. It would be highly inappropriate to include in the #1 section every last one of Erdős's 511 co-authors, most of whom should not and never will have Wikipedia articles. Readers interested in that level of detail are referred to the ENP. I'll concede that there are likely some non-notable redlinks in sections 1 and 2, mainly since I only remove the ones that aren't verified by our sources. Anyone is welcome to boldly delete any non-notable redlinks here, and even more welcome to write well-sourced articles for the notable ones. Ntsimp (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, if you continue to make adjustments to these explanations on the list, please please remember WP:ASR, and don't add the word "Wikipedia" anywhere. Ntsimp (talk) 19:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorting names - "Mac" vs. "Mc"

It appears that when we sort people whose last names' begin like "Mac*" or "Mc*", we treat the two prefixes as equivalent. (This appears to be the case, but I want to verify.)

For example, in this article we have listed:

Kevin McCurley
Ian G. Macdonald
Eugene McDonnell
Angus Macintyre

(Excuse my ignorance here...) Is this something specifically addressed in Wikipedia policy? Or, is this generally how such names are sorted? I believe that there are bots that sort names on Wikipedia, and I wonder whether they also know to follow this pattern.(?) Thanks, Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 19:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I found where this is discussed: Collation#Alphabetical_order. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 21:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Iwasawa and Karoubi

Anne Bauval questioned whether Kenkichi Iwasawa and Max Karoubi belonged on the #2 list, since neither is in the ENP data. It turns out that the MathSciNet calculator lists them both as being at distance 2, for the same erroneous reason: a review of an edited volume in which they were one of the contributors and someone at distance 1 was a contributor to a different chapter. In Iwasawa's case the review is MR0201394 and the other contributor is Chowla; in Karoubi's case the review is MR2572390 and the other contributor is Gérald Tenenbaum. I don't think these should count as valid paths. The best actual distance I can find in MathSciNet for Iwasawa is 4, via MR0202700 through Charles C. Sims. For Karoubi we get distance 3 via MR2667493 to Adrien Douady, MR0163182 to Jacques Dixmier, and MR0909556 to Erdős. So I'm moving Karoubi to #3 and removing Iwasawa. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Non-notable redlinks

The recent addition and removal of Fereydoun Hormozdiari raises the following question: do we need any readlinks on this page? For example, Fereydoun Hormozdiari seems to have Erdos number 2 – this looks to me like a valid joint publication with Noga Alon – but I nevertheless agree with the removal, as it seems fairly obvious that this person is not (yet) "notable in their own right". A simple way to deal with non-notable people would be to remove all redlinks. — Miym (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, although there are still a few definitely notable redlinks on the list I just haven't gotten around to writing articles for yet. The list would look cleaner without the redlinks, and WP:RED encourages us to write the article first. Unfortunately, since the decision was made to ban redlinks from #3, it feels like most edits here are redlinks being added to #3 and reverted! At least when someone adds a #1 or #2 redlink that shows up in our sources, it gets verified quickly and left alone. Ntsimp (talk) 01:05, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Having just been unlisted as having an Erdos #3, I accept the (possible) need to limit this list to those who are otherwise notable enough to make Wikipedia independent of their Erdos #. I believe an Erdos #1 might be significant enough by itself. In any case, the list should read "List of otherwise notable people by Erdos number".

There are other problems with the Erdos pages which I signed up to help edit, but having immediately stepped in it by adding myself (seemed obvious and a good idea at the time), I am not so sure I will risk more public humiliation. On that note, I do NOT think that it is a conflict of interest for someone (such as myself) to add myself to the list of people with Erdos #3, it is a simple, verifiable fact. On the other hand, it would be for me to add myself to a list of *notable* people etc... the COI being on the presumption of notability.

On that point, BTW, I took a gander at some of the bluelinks and could make a case for *their* not being significantly more notable than myself... including some (other) contributors to the Erdos pages, but am not inclined to go down that generally pointless path.

While I know that Wikipedia (and had it reinforced by reading the plethora of information about what is/isn't appropriate for Wikipedia) isn't a repository for *everything* I do tend to prefer to err on more over less and am often disappointed when I encounter a dead link or missing information that I am seeking. Up to and including people with Erdos #2 or #3 ... it is the human-edited context that wikipedia provides that makes it more interesting/useful than a mere google search...

Steven Alan Smith (talk) 00:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Stricter redlink policy?

What would you all think about eliminating all the redlinks in #2, or possibly even in #1, per WP:WTAF? There are a lot of non-notable people with Erdős number 2, and we're not trying to replicate the entire Oakland database here. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I thought we even agreed this at some point in the past but I couldnt see it on this Talk page.Billlion (talk) 17:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Reluctant Support The redlinks have not been doing their job; the articles are not forthcoming. I say we nuke them all. Ntsimp (talk) 18:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

In discussion above it wőas proposed to have all #1s listed, red or not, but only allow blue links for #2 and above. I think this is the correct cutoff since there are at least 6500 #2s and we can't either list them all or objectively choose some. However the number of red #1s is small enough that provoking articles on them is plausible. McKay (talk) 04:52, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I've started working on getting rid of the redlinks in #2 (not touching #1 at this time) but it's slow because I keep finding someone who is clearly worthy of an article and stopping to create it. Some of the ones I'm getting rid of are probably notable as well but no big loss, we can add them back if we ever get an article for them. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the time has come to kill all redlinks here. I did so, but feel free to revert if you think I'm way out of line. Ntsimp (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with this. I think everyone in #1 should be listed regardless of whether they have an article. This is supposed to be a list of coauthors of Erdős, not a list of wikipedia pages. However, since the red colour makes it ugly, let's try black. McKay (talk) 05:11, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Suppose we add at the top of the #2 section something like: "There are at least NNN mathematicians with Erdős number 2. Here we list those with Wikipedia articles." And similarly for #3 (with the counts filled in). This might reduce continual addition of red links. McKay (talk) 05:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think we have a disagreement about the purpose of the list. It would be a fairly trivial matter to just copy the list of all 511 of his coauthors here, but what would be the point? Most of them aren't Wikipedia-notable, and why duplicate a list that already exists elsewhere? Ntsimp (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see your point. Everything in Wikipedia is supposed to come from a reliable source somewhere else, so the fact that it (partly) duplicates an outside source is normal and not a reason for not having it. On the other hand, I don't see a purpose for a page whose content is "Erdős collaborators with their own Wikipedia page". Why would someone want that? It would need to be renamed and perhaps turned into a category. The reason we banned red links for #2 and #3 is that including everyone would be too much and some objective way to reduce it to a manageable size was required. The requirement of being famous would be better but it is too hard to implement. (Actually I wouldn't lose any sleep if #3 disappeared altogether.) McKay (talk) 03:56, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

This list had its origin in a set of categories, which was deleted. It's always been about linking to the Wikipedia articles, not just listing random people you can't even read about (why would someone want that?). As far as fame goes, there are many #3s that are far more famous (and notable) than many #1s. Ntsimp (talk) 14:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that having redlink for all the #1s is reasonable, since many of them are likely to have done other things and pass WP:PROF. The question is where to draw the line, but I don't see any problem with redlinks for #1. Remember that redlinks are valuable because they help us see places that our coverage may be lacking. We should certainly include in the list all of the people who have Erdos number 1 - I thought there were all there already. If not, we need to add them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Erdős collaborated on an enormous scale; that's really the origin of the Erdős number. He even published joint papers with people who never did much of anything else. Having Erdős number 1 doesn't make someone notable, and I repeat my claim that most of them aren't. Ntsimp (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

That's true, but there are zillions of people named in Wikipedia who don't have their own articles. That is fine if their name is appropriate in the article it appears in. This article exists because someone decided that having a small Erdős is something notable in itself. I don't see what harm is done by including the very small number of #1s who don't have their own articles yet, and some of them are indeed quite deserving of articles. On the contrary, removing their names makes the list less useful. McKay (talk) 03:56, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

"Very small number"? I count (by hand) 193 bluelinks in the #1 section. I think adding some 300 unlinked names of people who don't (and many of whom shouldn't) have their own articles would make the list far less useful. There's nothing special about the random sampling of #1s without articles that have already been added to the list; it just happened organically, one at a time, without anybody deleting the redlinks the way we have in section 3 (and, recently, 2). Ntsimp (talk) 14:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

New names

I'm a little uncomfortable about new names added to the list, which don't have articles. Since the Canfield contributor was anonymous, I just checked, easily found this geneology item. If I wanted to add someone I'd at least make a stub with a link to their academic home page or whatever, right? Pete St.John (talk) 17:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked him up too, after seeing that edit. I think we should only be adding redlinks of people who are clearly notable for something other than having a low Erdős number, but I also think Canfield qualifies, e.g. for editing EJC. Canfield's home page. A redlink here should be a hint to anyone looking for a page to create, but I don't think we need to actually create articles for all the redlinks until we're ready to take the time to do so properly for each one. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Since this list was based on the defunct categories, obviously it started with just people who already have articles. I didn't start adding redlinks until others did. I added two redlinks in copying people from the ENP list of prizewinners with Erdős number 3. I've been keeping a list of people with Erdős numbers 1 and 2 for whom I wanted to create articles. I finally copied the most important of those onto this list. If someone else makes articles for these before I get to them, then so much the better. But I certainly agree with David that they should be notable. Ntsimp (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No problems. I'll just say that if I were anonymous, when adding an item I'd create a stub with at least a link (mathscinet, the geneology project, a departmental page...) so we would know who was meant. And save us from checking :-) but sure, righteous contributors such as yourselves are welcome to paste whole lists wholesale, it's damage control. Pete St.John (talk) 21:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Er. If you were anonymous, you wouldn't be able to create a stub. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Ouch. Then I guess I'd put the link in the talk page (viz, here). Pete St.John (talk) 22:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

People without articles should not be added with a red link. If we want to keep them on the list, we should just add their names (no link). --Farzaneh (talk) 12:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:RED says, "Please do create red links to...topics that should obviously have articles." The redlinks encourage the creation of these articles, which should exist. Ntsimp (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest that Neil Calkin ought to be included under the list of those Erdős 1 - consider this reference: 6. Neil J. Calkin and Paul Erdős, "On a Class of Aperiodic Sum-free Sets", Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 120 (1996), 1-5. William R. Buckley — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.126.136.17 (talk) 08:53, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

We have no separate article on Calkin — his name redirects to Calkin–Wilf tree. Until we have a separate article, we should not list his name here. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:25, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

using categories

There are 511 people with Erdős number one, and 1.1009 × 10⁴ people with Erdős number two. Higher Erdős numbers grow exponentially in population. In my opinion, this is unmanageable for a single Wikipedia page. We should at the very most have one Wikipedia page listing the 511 coauthors of Erdős, and perhaps a second Wikipedia page listing the 1.1009 × 10⁴ coauthors of persons with Erdős number one. All other persons with Wikipedia pages who also have defined Erdős numbers should be grouped together using wikicategories. Placing a wikicategory link on the Wikipedia page for each person with a defined Erdős number will automatically create the wanted lists. This should be faster and easier than trying to keep track of the names and numbers on a separate Wikipedia page, which is unnecessary for a list of names that can be easily grouped with wikicategories instead. Nicole Sharp (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest a simple syntax for categorization, such as:

[[category:Erdős number 0]] (1 page)
[[category:Erdős number 1]] (less than 511 pages)
[[category:Erdős number 2]] (less than 1.1009 × 10⁴ pages)
[[category:Erdős number 3]]
[[category:Erdős number 4]]

and also for Wikipedia users,

[[category:Wikipedians with Erdős number 1]]
[[category:Wikipedians with Erdős number 2]]
[[category:Wikipedians with Erdős number 3]]
[[category:Wikipedians with Erdős number 4]]

It doesn't make any sense to me why these categories were deleted in the first place: "Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User/Archive/December 2007#Category:Wikipedians by Erdős number and all subcategories." I would strongly advise recreating them. The categories for Wikipedia users can be autogenerated using userbox templates. So that whenever someone adds an Erdős number userbox to their userpage, they are automatically added to the respective Wikipedian user category. Wikipedians who don't want to use userboxes can still add the wikicategories manually. We can still keep the Wikipedia pages though in addition to using categories. I do not see any harm in that redundancy, especially if say the Wikipedia page listing Wikipedia users can also show how the numbers are generated (i.e. the chain of coauthors to the Wikipedia user).

Nicole Sharp (talk) 15:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Having an Erdős number is not a defining characteristic of a person so it should not be used as an article category — user categories are a different matter. And there are way too many people with Erdős number 4 to even try to list or categorize them. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:55, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
- It should not define people but it does define relationships between people. Erdős numbers show social and professional relationships between authors, and provide an insight to professional authorship across a wide range of disciplines, all originally founding from the mathematics of Erdős. Even if they are just used for trivia, I do not see any reason to exclude Erdős numbers as categories. Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
- I should add that Erdős numbers also have implications for the philosophy of science, i.e. they help to emphasize that science is often not an individual effort but is rather a collaborative effort that requires a long chain of authors relying on other authors, what Erdős called "social mathematics" and what Isaac Newton called "standing on the shoulders of giants." See also "Erdős number#Impact" for more interesting usages and meanings of Erdős numbers. Using wikicategories instead of a single Wikipedia page also allows for easier computerized analyses to compare metadata about different authors and scientists. Nicole Sharp (talk) 17:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
  - "Defining" is a technical word here, described in more detail in WP:DEFINING. Categories must be defining of the article subject, not merely show relationships. We used to have these article categories, but they were removed. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 28#Erdős numbers, Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 28, and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 November 10#Category:Erdős numbers for more (there is a lot of discussion on this). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
  - I see the points. However, nearly all of these discussions are ten years old. A lot has changed since then. We have Wikidata now. If a researcher wants to create a statistical analysis comparing metadata of different scientists based on their Erdős numbers, they should not have to go to the American Mathematical Society's website to look up thousands or millions of authors. That information should be freely available in open source from Wikimedia. A list only inclusive up to Erdős number three doesn't work. We need an inclusive way to add arbitrarily high Erdős numbers to pages. The only way I can think of to do that is through wikicategories. Copying and pasting a wikicategory to the bottom of a page takes less than a second, and is easier than trying to add to a large alphabetical list on a Wikipedia page. I think that the number of analyses listed at "Erdős numbers#Impact" shows their usefulness toward providing new insights into how science is done, and the sociology of the science community. I think that we can clearly define what an Erdős number is and define who should have Erdős numbers using the American Mathematical Society's definitions. The only debatable issue then is whether they contribute to "overcategorization." I would say perhaps yes, but we don't really have a better way of showing these types of relationships between authors on Wikimedia, so we should still include them. If the idea is still troublesome though, then I suppose the other alternative is (like so many other failed Wikimedia ideas) to create an "Erdős Wikia" that lists the higher Erdős numbers. Nicole Sharp (talk) 17:41, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
    - Categories really do not work for describing all the relationships between coauthors in academic publications; at best they would show only paths to Erdős, an unrepresentative and narrowly focused subset of these relations. It is generally not acceptable to add categories to articles about living people without backing up their inclusion with article text and reliable sources, and in general we have deliberately omitted Erdős numbers from individual authors' articles (except for a handful for whom the connection to Erdős is demonstrably significant) because it's boring and useless trivia, especially when the numbers get big, and because we don't have good sources for the bigger numbers. And wikidata is wikidata; you don't need categories here to do stuff there. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
    - I suppose. I would still like to see the Wikipedia user categories recreated though. That makes even less sense to me to have them missing. You make reasonable arguments against using them for main articles, but there are all sorts of much sillier and poorly-established Wikipedia user categories in use. If we can have user categories such as "category:Wikipedians open to trout slapping" or "category:Wikipedian WikiCats," we should be able to have user categories for Wikipedian Erdős numbers. Nicole Sharp (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
      - I don't have a strong opinion on whether the user categories should be re-created but see WP:UCAT for is and is not generally allowed in a user category. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
        I don't see anything there that would preclude them. I'd say the best way to do it is to just go ahead and recreate the empty categories. If the opinions from ten years ago on those categories still prevail, they can always be deleted again. It will take time for people to re-add them though, and they would probably be a lot faster to adopt if we had userboxes for Erdős numbers. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
        
        I would say that the the Erdős number serves to a) indicate that a person has coauthored a work, and b) that this work can be traced via other authors to the mathematical works of Erdős. In today's age where anyone can self-publish a blog or a website, I would argue that coauthoring itself is still a relatively rare skill set outside of the wiki environment or academia. Professional experience in coauthoring can arguably make someone a better Wikipedian, and the Erdős number tends to be lowest in mathematical fields, so can indicate disciplinarity as well. So it does contain useful semantic information outside of the purposes of curiosity or trivia. Displaying an Erdős number on one's profile also shows a specific interest in the "social mathematics" philosophy of Erdős, which is relevant to Wikipedian philosophy. I think it is wrong for people to try to use it as a status symbol, and against the philosophies that Erdős believed in and encouraged. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:26, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
        
        I should also add that a large number of the Wikipedians who previously had Erdős numbers in categories are no longer active on Wikipedia. So any discussions from ten years ago are likely no longer relevant and should probably be reopened. Though again it is easier and faster to just remake the user categories first rather than to wait and see if there are any objections on a talkpage that has not been edited for ten years. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Btw, just some quick exponential math if anyone was curious: on a strict exponential curve, there should be about 3 × 10⁵ people with Erdős number three, about 5 × 10⁶ people with Erdős number four, about 1 × 10⁸ people with Erdős number five, and about 2 × 10⁹ people with Erdős number six [own work/unverified oversimplification, since not truly an exponential]. [1] Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

No more without articles

Many of the recent edits have been adding people without articles to the #1 section. This is a waste of effort and contributes nothing to Wikipedia. I've boldly gone ahead and deleted all the ones with no articles. I agree with the statement from Wikipedia:Write the article first that "Lists should only contain internally linked articles, thus serving as natural tables of content and indexes of Wikipedia." Some of the ones I deleted should surely have articles eventually, but they don't now. Most of them never will and shouldn't. ENP already exists; there's no need to copy their whole list. IMO this list is now better focused as a Wikipedia resource. I hope the consensus agrees. Ntsimp (talk) 16:52, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

==

J. M. Borwein, P. Maréchal and D. Naugler, "A convex dual approach to the computation of NMR complex spectra", Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, 51 (2000), 91-102. [CECM Research Report 98:114]

Jonathan Borwein (deceased 2 August 2016) had Erdős number 2. Hence David Naugler and Pierre Maréchal have Erdős number 3. How to revise? Thanks.

== — Preceding unsigned comment added by Relguan (talk • contribs)

Three steps.

Find evidence (documented by published sources) that Maréchal and/or Naugler pass WP:PROF. The citation record looks too slim for WP:PROF#C1, so you will have to find something else. Did they hold a named chair? Were they presidents of universities? Did they win a major international award? Were they members of national academies?
Use that evidence as the sourcing for a new article about them. (Note that we already have an article Pierre Maréchal about someone else, so you would have to use a different title, possibly Pierre Maréchal (mathematician).
After those articles already exist (and are not immediately deleted because you failed to follow step 1), edit this list to add links to them.

—David Eppstein (talk) 01:59, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Titu Andreescu

Titu Andreescu was just added to the #2 list, but I can't verify his number. He's not on the ENP list, and the AMS seems to have pulled open access to its calculator. Could someone please verify? Ntsimp (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

MathSciNet gives him distance 2 via Florian Luca and the publications MR 3512856 and MR 2437964. So it looks ok to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:12, 26 September 2017 (UTC)