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The Erdos-Bacon number of a mathematician or an actor is the sum of their Erdos number and their Bacon number. Not many professional mathematicians have had film rôles. However, a few important ones have done consulting work for Hollywood films about mathematicians, such as A Beautiful Mind. For example, William Timothy Gowers, who has Erdos number 4, was a consultant for Proof, with Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead
rôle. Paltrow was in se7en with Endre Hules, who was in Apollo 13 with Kevin Bacon. Thus Gowers has an Erdos-Bacon number of 7. Daniel Kleitman, consultant for Good Will Hunting, has an even smaller Erdos-Bacon number, 3, since he co-authored a paper with Erdos and the film included Minnie Driver, who starred with Bacon in Sleepers. The smallest likely Erdos-Bacon number would probably be 2, if an Erdos co-author consulted for a movie starring Bacon. It's also possible that Kevin Bacon could co-author a mathematical paper with an Erdos co-author, but this appears unlikely.
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