Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Calculator Comes to Google Search


Google Search has come a long way from the plain of old list of ten results-there’s a full calculator with graphing functions, flight search, movie showtimes and currency conversion just to name a few – but now the search engine is getting a bit more pop culture functionality.

As of today, you can type “bacon number” followed by any actor’s or actress’ name to find out just how many degrees of separation there are between that person and well-traveled actor Kevin Bacon.

For example  if you type Angelina Jolie bacon number, then Google will tell you how many steps they are away from Kevin Bacon.

Yossi Matias, an engineering director and head of Google’s Israel Engineering Center said that “We are always trying to provide users with the best answer for what they are looking for and as quickly as possible”.

The idea behind the bacon number goes a little deeper than just a fascination with the actor. “The notion of [the Bacon number] is based on a pretty popular term among mathematicians and scientists, called the Erdos number says Matias, referencing the theory that all mathematicians have some connection with the mathematician Paul Erdös. People are quite fascinated by these small-world phenomena”.

The Los Angels Times reports that “the game was started by three college buddies, Craig fass, Brain Turtle and Mike Ginelliin in the late 1990’s”.

How does a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Calculator works?

It is very simple all you have to do is ask Google what any given actor bacon number is. For instance, if you search for Mark Wahlberg’s bacon number, it comes up as 2. Google will then tell you exactly how they came to that number. In Mark Wahlberg’s case, he and Steve Carell appeared together in the movie Date Night. Steve Carell and Kevin Bacon appeared together in the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love. Thus Mark Wahlberg’s bacon number is 2.

Most interesting this is Kevin Bacon’s own bacon number is zero. So far, no one has been able to find a bacon number higher than 4. Mark Zuckerberg scores a 4. So, now search your favorite actor score with the help of Bacon calculator in the Google Search.

About Sarvesh Darak


Speak Your Mind

