regarding Amitabh Bachchan's Bacon number

[Subbarao Kambhampati <rao@asu.edu>]

So, Kentaro Toyama looked at the slides I used in the class, as well
as my speculation as to why the 4-path was chosen instead of the
3-path (given Bachchan's Baker number of 3), and had this to say
(excerpt from a longer mail):

-----------
-- As for Amitabh and Kevin, I didn't use the 3-path because Arnie
Alpert has (amazingly) no photo on the web that is easily findable.  It
was actually harder to find the 4-path with all famous people.  
----------

 As he points out not all paths are created equal and to the extent the
Oracle of Bacon insists on giving only the shortest paths, you have to
do a fair bit of small-world-navigation yourself to find other types
of paths.


rao
[Dec  5, 2005]