Google Introduces 'Bacon Number' Tool

by UInterviewSeptember 20, 2012, 12:00 amNews >

Bored at work? Google just launched its Bacon number tool — also known as your new pastime. For those of you unfamiliar with the Bacon number, this figure represents the degree of separation between a person and actor Kevin Bacon. Now, by typing in any actor's name followed by "Bacon number," Google automatically calculates the degree of separation between that actor and Bacon. As it turns out, many are more closely related than you'd expect, such as Kim Kardashian, who only has a two-degree separation (thanks to Denise Richards), and Christopher Nolan, whose Bacon number is three. Any guesses for Snooki. Nope! Only two. In fact, there are merely 32 people on IMDb with a Bacon number of eight, while there are 839,562 people with a Bacon number of three. Thanks to some computations by the folks over at The Oracle of Bacon, we now know that the average Bacon number is in fact approximately 2.98.

But as it turns out, Kevin Bacon is not actually the best so-called "center of the Hollywood universe." Some famous names that beat out Bacon's number are Dennis Hopper (2.8), Donald Sutherland (2.81), Robert DeNiro (2.84), Samuel L. Jackson (2.85), John Malkovich (2.86), Gene Hackman (2.87), Bruce Willis (2.87), Steve Buscemi (2.88), Anthony Hopkins (2.888), Sean Connery (2.889) and Clint Eastwood (2.895). Interestingly, the list is dominated by men, although Karen Black figures in at 23rd place (2.86), Faye Dunaway comes in at number 38 (2.881) and Vanessa Redgrave follows Hopkins in position 54 (2.891). Some of the youngest female actresses to make it surprisingly high on the list include Julia Roberts (2.92), Julianne Moore (2.95) and Heather Graham (2.96).