Many people have heard of the common theory, "six degrees of separation," which is the idea that everyone in the world can be connected by six or less links of association. The Hollywood variation of this idea is the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," which suggests that every Hollywood celebrity has worked with actor Kevin Bacon or is associated with another celebrity who has appeared in films with him. You may recognize Kevin from movies such as Footloose (1984), Apollo 13 (1995), Beauty Shop (2005), and X-Men: First Class (2011). Originally started as a trivia game in which you had to figure out a celebrity's association with Kevin Bacon, Google has taken the work out of the game by designing a new algorithm for their search engine that allows you to find any celebrity's "Bacon number." Just type a celebrity name and then 'bacon number' into Google, and it will automatically tell you how that celebrity is associated with Kevin Bacon.
So after hearing about this new feature, I decided to try it out for myself. I kid you not when I say I have spent hours trying to find a celebrity that has a Bacon Number higher than 4. It's nearly impossible! Kevin Bacon truly is the "center of the Hollywood Universe." Bacon has a new TV show called "The Following" scheduled to debut soon which will surely lower some Bacon numbers. In a few years, they will have to change the name of the game to the Two Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Even the most unlikely people have low Bacon numbers like Judy Garland (2), Shirley Temple (3), and even our own President Barack Obama (2). The highest I've found so far belongs to both Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Bieber (4). My challenge for you is to find the celebrity with the highest Bacon number. But I warn you, be prepared to sacrifice your productivity for the rest of the day!
~ Michelle Marks
Post a Comment