Six Degrees of Separation in Science Forum

Welcome to Six Degrees of Separation in Science!
The purpose of this group is to discuss small world phenomena in science.

Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six “steps” away from each person on Earth. This is of course also an interesting concept in science, in particular considering all coauthors of scientific publications. Our friends in mathematics cherish the Erdős number, which is a way of describing the “collaborative distance”, in regard to mathematical papers, between an author and Erdős. The late Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős was one of the most prolific writers of mathematical papers.

My idea behind creating this group is letting people find their “collaborative distance” between themselves and persons such as friends, colleagues, family, Nobel Prize laureates, and hollywood stars (the few that also publish…).

The questions of course is: How do I compute my “collaborative distance” with person X?
First, you need to have a published manuscript.
Second, you can use databases on the web. For Math I recommend this database: MatSciNet. For medical related sciences, you can go to: Biomedexperts.com.
The latter site requires that you log in. If you then search for a person, you can see your “collaborative distance”. Databases generally need some time to update, so they won’t include recent publications. I guess you have to wait 6 months.

I’ll give some examples of my own collaborative distances:

Me to Paul Erdos:
Jacobus FA Jansen
Peter CM van Zijl
Michael I. Miller
Ulf Grenander
Oved Shisha
Paul Erdős

Me to Paul Lauterbur
Jansen JFA
Bulte JW
Magin RL
Lauterbur PC

Me to Peter Mansfield
Jansen JFA
van Zijl PC
Pilatus U
Blackband SJ
Mansfield P

Me to Richard Ernst
Jansen JFA
Spronk CA
Nilges M
Oschkinat H
Ernst RR

Me to Natalie Portman
Jansen JFA
Stunnenberg HG
Schütz G
Liao JK
Boas DA
Hershlag N (Portman)

So feel free to post your own collaborative distances to anyone you like! And check out your distance to me (Jacobus FA Jansen) :)

Have fun!