# Blonk numbers and Center of the Cubieverse



## Stefan (Apr 12, 2010)

.

*Edit: Link to Cubieverse: http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieverse/*

You might've heard of Bacon numbers or Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The idea is to count how many movies someone is separated from Kevin Bacon. He himself is not separated at all, so his own Bacon number is 0. Actors appearing with him in movies have Bacon number 1, actors appearing in movies with those have Bacon number 2, and so on. The lower your Bacon number, the closer you are to Kevin.

I have now transferred the idea to cubing, the connections not made by appearing in the same movie but by appearing in the same WCA competition. But where do I start, who is the Kevin Bacon of cubing? Well, only one way to find out:







So my "Blonk number" is 1, because I participated in the 2005 world championship together with Michiel. Here's the distribution of Blonk numbers for all WCA members:


```
Blonk
number    People

   0          1   (this is [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2003BLON01]Michiel[/url] himself)
   1        201   (I'm one of these, woohoo!)
   2       5430
   3       3124
   4        332
 none        19   (the competitors of [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=DubaiOpen2009]Dubai Open 2009[/url])

Average Blonk number: 2.39447623239437
```

Michiel only appeared in two competitions, though, WC2003 and WC2005. That is nice for the game, cause not too many people get a Blonk number of 1, but it also doesn't quite make him the "Center of the Cubieverse" (just like Kevin Bacon isn't really the Center of the Hollywood Universe). The WCA member with the smallest average distance to everyone else is... Lars Vandenbergh. No wonder, as he has competed in 67 competitions, more than anyone else.


```
Vandenbergh
number    People

   0          1   (this is Lars himself)
   1       1672   (I'm one of these, woohoo!)
   2       6836
   3        579
 none        19   (the competitors of [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=DubaiOpen2009]Dubai Open 2009[/url])

Average Vandenbergh number: 1.87951144366197
```
And here are the top 10:

1.880: Lars Vandenbergh (67 competitions)
1.884: Bob Burton (59 competitions)
1.886: Arnaud van Galen (58 competitions)
1.903: Adam Zamora (52 competitions)
1.906: Shelley Chang (55 competitions)
1.910: Takao Hashimoto (43 competitions)
1.914: Anders Larsson (36 competitions)
1.915: Tyson Mao (43 competitions)
1.927: Timothy Sun (20 competitions)
1.933: Piti Pichedpan (*only 9* competitions)

The bottom 10 (or rather 11):
4.210: Yang-Sung Ling (1 competition)
4.210: Joy Lin (1 competition)
4.210: Yung-An Chen (1 competition)
4.210: Yu-Hsiang Chan (1 competition)
4.210: Wei-Shu Lai (1 competition)
4.210: Fang-Chieh Yang (1 competition)
4.210: Tzu-Cheng Chen (1 competition)
4.210: Chih-Chieh Su (1 competition)
4.210: John Lin (1 competition)
4.210: Kai-Chieh Chan (1 competition)
4.210: Jizhen Ho (1 competition)
These are all competitors of the Chia-yi Pyraminx Competition 2009 except Tzu-Chun Chou, who connected this competition to the rest of us (except the Dubai Open 2009).

Note 1: These statistics are based on the WCA database as of early April 12, 2010. I don't intend to update this post, but I'm working on a page that updates automatically and that will also have more functionality.

Note 2: Erdős numbers are the same idea (how many scientific publications are you separated from famous mathematician Paul Erdős) and are older, but Bacon numbers seem to be more well-known and there's no single Paul Erdős of cubing. That's why I chose Bacon. Besides, who doesn't [thread=12681]love Bacon[/thread]? Btw, check out this nice comic.


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## Lucas Garron (Apr 12, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> Note 2: Erdős numbers are the same idea (how many scientific publications are you separated from famous mathematician Paul Erdős) and are older, but Bacon numbers seem to be more well-known and there's no single Paul Erdős of cubing.


But Erdős numbers are more classic!

Anyhow, I would really be in favor of van Bruchem numbers. If there's one guy in the center of cubing, it's Ron.


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## Stefan (Apr 12, 2010)

You're just angry cause your Blonk number is 2 

Ok, (van) Bruchem numbers:

```
Bruchem
number    People

   0          1   (this is Ron himself)
   1       1365   (I'm one of these, woohoo!)
   2       6876
   3        846
 none        19   (the competitors of Dubai Open 2009)

Average Bruchem number: 1.94267165492958
```


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## robinkwant (Apr 12, 2010)

nice idea very interesting


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## Escher (Apr 12, 2010)

You are so, so awesome


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## jiggy (Apr 12, 2010)

Haha, excellent post!  What's the deal with those 19 Dubai Open 2009 competitors though?


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## Stefan (Apr 12, 2010)

That Dubai competition is completely separate from the rest. None of its participants ever participated in any other competition, so there's no connection to any other competitions and thus persons.


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## jiggy (Apr 12, 2010)

But is that the only competition where this happened? What a strange anomaly!


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## JBCM627 (Apr 12, 2010)

jiggy said:


> But is that the only competition where this happened? What a strange anomaly!


Normally, the delegate has competed in a previous competition and competes in the competition they are delegating. Not the case with Dubai, who had a delegate from Seven Towns.


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## Stefan (Apr 12, 2010)

Yes, that's the only one. That pyraminx competition came close, only connected to the rest of the world via a single competitor.


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## MichaelP. (Apr 12, 2010)

If I understand correctly, my Bacon Number is 4. Me > Anthony > Tyson > Blonk.


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## Bryan (Apr 12, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> If I understand correctly, my Bacon Number is 4. Me > Anthony > Tyson > Blonk.



You > Casey Pernsteiner > Blonk


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## cincyaviation (Apr 12, 2010)

how do we find out our numbers?


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## Vincents (Apr 12, 2010)

Look for familiar names...

I think I'm usually a 2, because everyone at US Nats 09 connects me to most of the world =)


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## Stefan (Apr 12, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> If I understand correctly, my Bacon Number is 4. Me > Anthony > Tyson > Blonk.



I doubt you have a Bacon number. Your Blonk number is 2, like Bryan said.



cincyaviation said:


> how do we find out our numbers?



Browse the database making guesses, download the WCA database export and analyse it with a program, or wait until I'm finished with my page


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## scotzbhoy (Apr 13, 2010)

My Blonk number is 2, via Dan Harris. My Vandenbergh number is 1 and my (van) Bruchem number is 2, via quite a few people.


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## MichaelP. (Apr 13, 2010)

Bryan said:


> MichaelP. said:
> 
> 
> > If I understand correctly, my Blonk Number is 4. Me > Anthony > Tyson > Blonk.
> ...



Thank you Casey!


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## Neo63 (Apr 13, 2010)

Yay my Blonk number is 2 via Dave Campbell 

This is such an interesting idea, can't wait till your website finishes.


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## Tyson (Apr 13, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> MichaelP. said:
> 
> 
> > If I understand correctly, my Bacon Number is 4. Me > Anthony > Tyson > Blonk.
> ...



I have a Bacon number 

Due to a mistake on IMDB.


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## Forte (Apr 13, 2010)

Me > Justin Jaffray

JJ number = 1


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Ok, you can now look up the distances from all persons to one certain one, or a shortest path between two persons:

http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieverse/

So far you need to enter WCA-IDs. Letting you search names and choose the right ones would/will be more work.


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Here's the version with Bacon, btw:
http://oracleofbacon.org/

And yes, according to that, Tyson indeed has a Bacon number of 2.


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## Cyrus C. (Apr 13, 2010)

My Blonk Number is 2. Thanks to Dave Campbell.

On your program, how is the passage decided if there are 2 people who would give you the same Blonk Number? Alphabetized?


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Oh and on my page, I only show the first shortest path I find, not all of them. I might change that to showing the first few, or add showing the number of different paths.


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## Tim Reynolds (Apr 13, 2010)

Hmm, my average is 1.9372. Is that 11th? Or is there someone between me and Piti?


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Yes, you're 11th. Will show that soon.


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## Tim Reynolds (Apr 13, 2010)

Yay!

Oh, and this is really cool. Thanks for putting this together, Stefan. One other question: I see that, for instance, 2009LINJ04 is separated from 65 people by 6 degrees. Who are some of these people? It's pretty clear nobody can be further than that, as Lars is separated from everyone by only 3.


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## Cyrus C. (Apr 13, 2010)

2.7622 average.


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 13, 2010)

By the way, I'm just curious - who on here has an Erdős number? Knowing the math tendencies of cubers, I can't help believing there are a few. Jessica Fridrich has an Erdős number of 3.

If you want to search, go here.


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## Neo63 (Apr 13, 2010)

lol I have a Bacon number of 3 cuz apparently I acted in a movie called Sha chu chong wei (1978)

EDIT: I have an average Blonk number of 2.6876, I should go to more comps

EDIT2: I got Unknown WCA-ID '2003VAND01'. when trying to connect with Lars.


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## cmhardw (Apr 13, 2010)

Someone had to do it 

I'm a 1! 

Chris


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Neo63 said:


> I have an average Blonk number of 2.6876


No. You have a Blonk number of 2. The 2.6876 is the average Neil Wu number.



Neo63 said:


> I got Unknown WCA-ID '2003VAND01'. when trying to connect with Lars.


Oops. Thanks. Will look into that tomorrow, going to bed now.


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Fixed the Vandenbergh bug and now show the place in the Center of the Cubieverse ranklist. More tomorrow.


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## Lucas Garron (Apr 13, 2010)

Must.. resist... temptation to... make a huge graph poster...


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

You could make a poster for the graph where the vertices are competitions and they're connected via competitors, that one would be much smaller. Show only its minimum spanning tree (counting the sum of all paths from the root, I mean, don't know the name for this) and it might look quite nice. For bonus style points, use every competitor at most once.


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## Hyprul 9-ty2 (Apr 13, 2010)

Thank you Anders  I have a blonk number of 2


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## joey (Apr 13, 2010)

I'm 17th in the Cubiverse ranking list.. that's pretty good


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> You're just angry cause your Blonk number is 2
> 
> Ok, (van) Bruchem numbers:
> 
> ...


Seems strange that Ton Dennenbroek is not in the top 10.


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## Dene (Apr 13, 2010)

My Blonk number is 2 apparently >.<.

I'm 783 in the cubieverse >.<. Haven't met any Euro cubers...

I guess I'm the only one connecting anyone over here to the rest of the world as well. Our very own WR holder is placed 8674 in the cubieverse >.< .


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## MTGjumper (Apr 13, 2010)

Just noticed me, Jude and Rowan have exactly the same stats


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## keemy (Apr 13, 2010)

darn I'm 375th I should go to some comps on other continents.


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

keemy said:


> darn I'm 375th I should go to some comps on other continents.



Interesting question I don't have an answer for yet: Can your rank get *worse* by going to a competition?

More precisely, compare these two scenarios:
1) You participated in competition X.
2) You didn't participate in competition X.
That's the only difference, everything else is the same.

In scenario 1, your average distance is probably lower and definitely not higher (unless you're connecting to an otherwise unconnected part of the graph). But what about your rank? By being there you not only lower your own average distance, you're also lowering _other people_'s average distance. Is it possible that your rank is better in scenario 2?

Btw, I'm putting this on hold until Friday, need to work on something else now.


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 13, 2010)

MTGjumper said:


> Just noticed me, Jude and Rowan have exactly the same stats



My daughters Marie and Rebecca have exactly the same stats too. (They've been to all the same competitions together.) They are both 410 in the cubieverse.

Is there any other pair of competitors with identical stats who can beat their rank?


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

Mike Hughey said:


> Is there any other pair of competitors with identical stats who can beat their rank?



Joel and Maria are the first who have the same average and thus share the same rank, 51:
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...YM01&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...OR01&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID

Robin and Monika are the first with identical stats, at rank 134.
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...OH02&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...MM01&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID
They're joined by Adam at rank 134 (the first triple) with the same average but different stats:
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...LL03&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID


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## Edam (Apr 13, 2010)

first triple, excellent.


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## Stefan (Apr 13, 2010)

The next larger group with the same average is a group of eight people at rank 264. Seven Germans who have been to the same three competitions and Alberto, who's been to more competitions but still has the same stats:
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...AR01&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieve...SI01&showDists=Show+distances+for+this+WCA-ID


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## keemy (Apr 18, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> keemy said:
> 
> 
> > darn I'm 375th I should go to some comps on other continents.
> ...



yo I made a counter example on a graph but it was comparing having a comp with 2 people versus if 1 didn't show up so technically not allowed by wca rules but I don't want to make a more complicated graph.







so I'm trying to make it so with the comp top left comp goer will pass the bottom right comp goer (will worry about the rest of the people later, also I am going to use the sum of distances rather than average because the ranks will be the same)

so I want to find some solutions to the system of inequalities.

4m+3+2+k > 3+2k+(m+1) and 2(m+1) + (k+1) < 2k + (m+2)

simplifying we get 3m+1 > k and m+1 < k which works for k=3, m=1

then to verify i draw the graph with k=3 and m=1 (you can imagine it XP) and check to make sure what i wanted happened. As it turns out the bottom right comp goer was originally ranked 2nd and goes down the 3rd by attending the comp.

If someone wants to construct a case were at least 12 people must go to a competition that would be nice (or prove it's impossible)

oh and qq wrote a graph theory sounding definition for the question if anyone is interested: 

start with a graph of people, with "distance" defined as avg minimal distance to other vertices, and "rank" defined as a point's rank in the list of possible distances. If you add a K_n to the graph (you can add vertices if you want), can you make the rank of any vertex in that K_n strictly worse compared to leaving that vertex out of the K_n and adding a K_(n-1) without them.

and I guess we want a case with n>= 13


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## qqwref (Apr 18, 2010)

Hey, Stefan, how many people are at most distance 3 from everyone else in the large group of connected people? It seems that some of the top 10 people have this property, but they don't all.


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## Stefan (Apr 18, 2010)

No problem with the non-WCA-compliant competition size, that's arbitrary anyway. I disagree with your example, though.



keemy said:


> As it turns out the bottom right comp goer was originally ranked 2nd and goes down the 3rd by attending the comp.


If I understand and analyzed your example correctly, he actually went from rank 5 to shared rank 3.


Michael: Will check that tomorrow.


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## keemy (Apr 18, 2010)

Stefan: B, C, D shouldn't be connected to each other. (so just add 2 to what you have b,c,d as in both your graphs)


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## megaminxwin (Apr 18, 2010)

Distances to me:
0:1 (me)
1:32
2:563
3:4659
4:3757
5:76
none:19
Average: 3.3608
So I'm number 8676 in the list.

My Blonk Number:
3: Me
Melbourne Summer Open 2010
2: Dene Beardsley
San Francisco Open 2009
1: Bob Burton
WC 2005
0: Michiel Van Der Blonk
So my Blonk Number is 3.

w00t random statistics


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## Tim Reynolds (Apr 18, 2010)

Last night I was curious who else was near the top of the list of average distances, so Dave and I found the top 33. Not surprisingly, everyone on that list went to WC2009. Stefan, do you know who's highest on the list that didn't go to WC2009?


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## anders (Apr 18, 2010)

Tim Reynolds said:


> Last night I was curious who else was near the top of the list of average distances, so Dave and I found the top 33. Not surprisingly, everyone on that list went to WC2009. Stefan, do you know who's highest on the list that didn't go to WC2009?



I didn't go to WC2009.


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## Tim Reynolds (Apr 19, 2010)

anders said:


> Tim Reynolds said:
> 
> 
> > Last night I was curious who else was near the top of the list of average distances, so Dave and I found the top 33. Not surprisingly, everyone on that list went to WC2009. Stefan, do you know who's highest on the list that didn't go to WC2009?
> ...



...Ah, right. D'oh. I guess I assumed that since the other 32 of the top 33 did, you did too.


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## anders (Apr 19, 2010)

Tim Reynolds said:


> anders said:
> 
> 
> > Tim Reynolds said:
> ...



That was a fair assumption, but I moved to Singapore right before the WC. I did my planning when it still was said that the WC will take place in Hong Kong...


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## Yes We Can! (Apr 19, 2010)

2: Cornelius Dieckmann
WC2009
1: Lars Vandenbergh
WC2005
0: Michiel van der Blonk

Yay 

My average number is 2.1333 
(279th)


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## JBCM627 (Apr 19, 2010)

Would it be possible to see some sort of geographic representation of Blonk numbers? As in, a world map with an average number for each country. I wonder if there would be an obvious geographic correlation between average Blonk number and location of the 2 Blonk competitions (WC03 & WC05).

Should be straightforward enough to implement with one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blank_maps#World


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## Stefan (Apr 20, 2010)

New page showing everybody's stats (except the guys from the lone Dubai competition). Still rough and not using the newest data, but nice enough to show:
http://stefan-pochmann.info/cubieverse/cubieverse.html



qqwref said:


> how many people are at most distance 3 from everyone else in the large group of connected people?


26, you can see it now on that new page by sorting by distance 4 and seeing there are 26 with nobody at distance 4.



qqwref said:


> It seems that some of the top 10 people have this property, but they don't all.


Yes, only four do.

And Piti truly is the master of connections. He's at most 3 away from everyone and has the smallest number of distance-3 persons. All that with only 9 competitions.


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## Stefan (Apr 20, 2010)

Added showing number of competitions.

After Piti (rank 10 with only 9 competitions), the best ranks with fewest competitions are:

Rank 39 with only 5 competitions: Baramee Pookcharoen
Rank 96 with only 4 competitions: Arnold Soeparjanto
Rank 124 with only 3 competitions: Denis Goepfert
Rank 129 with only 2 competitions: Michael Layher (WC2007 and WC2009)
Rank 321 with only 1 competition: Eileen Henfling and 17 other people who only competed at WC2009

And in the other direction, bad rank despite many competitions:

Rank 1000 despite 20 competitions: Shenjia Zhang (only competed in east China)
Rank 5586 despite 10 competitions: Syoji Takamatsu (only competed in Japan)
Rank 7074 despite 8 competitions: Krzysztof Zygowski (only competed in Poland)
Rank 8325 despite 4 competitions: Ming-Yi Lin (only competed in Taiwan)

(this list is incomplete, done by hand)


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## qqwref (Apr 20, 2010)

Seems like rank is quite highly dependent on how many/which world competitions you've been to.

Interesting result: Bob Burton has been to competitions with the most unique people.


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## Tim Major (Apr 20, 2010)

Distance	People
0	1
1	32
2	563
3	4659
4	3757
5	76
none	19
Average:
3.3608
This average gives Tim Major place 8676 in the Center of the Cubieverse ranklist.

3: Tim Major
MelbourneSummerOpen2010
2: Dene Beardsley
SanFranciscoOpen2009
1: Bob Burton
WC2005
0: Michiel van der Blonk

Probably because I've only been to a comp with mainly Aussies, and most of the Aussies haven't been to other comps before. Dene is my real link, as he's been to the US.


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## macky (Apr 20, 2010)

Mike Hughey said:


> By the way, I'm just curious - who on here has an Erdős number? Knowing the math tendencies of cubers, I can't help believing there are a few. Jessica Fridrich has an Erdős number of 3.
> 
> If you want to search, go here.



I wrote a paper last year with someone who has an Erdős number of 4. We sent it off to a journal a while ago, but we haven't heard anything back since...I should go bug them.


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## anders (Apr 20, 2010)

macky said:


> Mike Hughey said:
> 
> 
> > By the way, I'm just curious - who on here has an Erdős number? Knowing the math tendencies of cubers, I can't help believing there are a few. Jessica Fridrich has an Erdős number of 3.
> ...



Using the link provided by Mike, I find that Lutz Niemeyer has Erdős number 5. I know that Lutz has written papers together with Ivo Gallimberti, and I have had Ivo as co-author. However, his does probably *not* mean that I have an Erdős number of 7 since our papers are more physics than mathematics.


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## cuBerBruce (Apr 20, 2010)

macky said:


> Mike Hughey said:
> 
> 
> > By the way, I'm just curious - who on here has an Erdős number? Knowing the math tendencies of cubers, I can't help believing there are a few. Jessica Fridrich has an Erdős number of 3.
> ...



Morley Davidson has an Erdős number of 4. (So might I have an Erdős number soon.  )


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## cmhardw (Apr 20, 2010)

One of my good friends from High School is working on his Ph.D. in math at Emory and is currently co-authoring and working on a paper that, when submitted for publication, will give him an Erdös number of 2.



We always knew he would go places in high school, he's just one of those people, but also a really cool guy 

Chris


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## joey (Apr 20, 2010)

So who has the lowest Erdös + cubiverse number? Will it be Macky if he gets published?


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## Swordsman Kirby (Apr 21, 2010)

joey said:


> So who has the lowest Erdös + cubiverse number? Will it be Macky if he gets published?



Wouldn't the sum of Erdos + Blonk be more appropriate?


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## qqwref (Apr 21, 2010)

Yes. Unfortunately just going to a competition seems to be enough to get a Blonk number of 4 or better; if any of the 200-odd people who went to WC03 or WC05 are there, you got 2 immediately. And you can't improve to a 1 unless you can convince Blonk to go to another competition. Sadly I think the Blonk numbers are a fair bit less prestigious than the Erdos numbers


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## Michiel van der Blonk (Apr 22, 2010)

*So what is my Blonk number?*

Please tell me, I'm curious. Is it 0?

Anyway, thanks, Stefan. I didn't even know I had bacon in my name, even though I don't really like bacon, but well. It's an honor to finally have something named after me... 

There's a slight chance I may visit the US (Boston) this year, which would hopefully allow me to go to a current competition somewhere. Hack, maybe someone wants to influence their blonk number so they will organize one when I'm there...

Michiel


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## Tim Reynolds (Apr 22, 2010)

Michiel van der Blonk said:


> Please tell me, I'm curious. Is it 0?
> 
> Anyway, thanks, Stefan. I didn't even know I had bacon in my name, even though I don't really like bacon, but well. It's an honor to finally have something named after me...
> 
> ...



When are you visiting Boston? Ron's recent visit to Boston very nicely correlated with MIT Spring 2010. Any chance it'll be on or around November 13?


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## Stefan (Apr 22, 2010)

Michiel van der Blonk said:


> Please tell me, I'm curious. Is it 0?


Yes, of course 



Michiel van der Blonk said:


> There's a slight chance I may visit the US (Boston) this year, which would hopefully allow me to go to a current competition somewhere.


Oh no, you're gonna kill us all! The cubieverse should expand, you're gonna make it collapse!

The US Nationals will be near Boston, maybe we'll both be there and I can strengthen my Blonk value (might make it a weighted graph then, a connection being not distance 1 but 1/numberOfSharedCompetitions).


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## qqwref (Apr 22, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> The US Nationals will be near Boston, maybe we'll both be there and I can strengthen my Blonk value (might make it a weighted graph then, a connection being not distance 1 but 1/numberOfSharedCompetitions).



Ha ha! That would be silly. But yeah, come to US Nationals. Lots of people you haven't met will be there.


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## Tim Reynolds (Apr 22, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> The US Nationals will be near Boston, maybe we'll both be there and I can strengthen my Blonk value (might make it a weighted graph then, a connection being not distance 1 but 1/numberOfSharedCompetitions).



Oh yeah...I suggested November 13 for MIT Fall 2010, but forgot we were holding Nationals here. Whoops


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## Dene (Apr 22, 2010)

Now wouldn't that be nice if I managed a Blonk number of 1?


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## Ron (Apr 22, 2010)

Ronald Hoekstra 2005HOEK01 has a Bacon number of 2.

He was the 'hand double' of Eion Bailey in the Movie Mindhunters.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297284/


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## Swordsman Kirby (Apr 22, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


>



What.



qqwref said:


> Sadly I think the Blonk numbers are a fair bit less prestigious than the Erdos numbers



Well, writing math papers is probably harder than solving a Rubik's cube.


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## joey (Apr 22, 2010)

Swordsman Kirby said:


> StefanPochmann said:
> 
> 
> >
> ...



u hav 2 b gud at mafs to solve a cube dat faast!!!1


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## Tim Reynolds (Jul 25, 2010)

*bump*

Looks like it's time to recompute your Blonk numbers, folks!


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## Cubenovice (Jul 25, 2010)

Why?

Stefan has not refreshed the database, my WCA ID (As of Belgian open) is still not recognized...


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## vcuber13 (Jul 25, 2010)

heres mine


Spoiler


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## keemy (Jul 25, 2010)

Cubenovice said:


> Why?
> 
> Stefan has not refreshed the database, my WCA ID (As of Belgian open) is still not recognized...



because Blonk competed again  I am guessing Tim was trying to ask Stefan to update it (all subtle like).


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## Tyson (Jul 25, 2010)

Ron said:


> Ronald Hoekstra 2005HOEK01 has a Bacon number of 2.
> 
> He was the 'hand double' of Eion Bailey in the Movie Mindhunters.
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297284/



I have a Bacon number of 2 

http://oracleofbacon.org/

Though, it is in error as I was not really in a movie with Steve Martin.


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## Tim Reynolds (Jul 26, 2010)

keemy said:


> Cubenovice said:
> 
> 
> > Why?
> ...



I was just pointing out the fact that Blonk competed. Anyway, he couldn't have updated it at the time because I was too lazy to export the database, so Stefan couldn't have imported the database yet. I'll do that now.


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## qqwref (Jul 26, 2010)

Hm, now it's a lot more common to have a Blonk number of 2. I would be interested to see the Cubiverse database refreshed.


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## cincyaviation (Jul 26, 2010)

Tyson said:


> Ron said:
> 
> 
> > Ronald Hoekstra 2005HOEK01 has a Bacon number of 2.
> ...


Your popularity is down 39% this week apparently.


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## anders (Jul 30, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> That Dubai competition is completely separate from the rest. None of its participants ever participated in any other competition, so there's no connection to any other competitions and thus persons.



This guy has registered for Austrian Open. Finally, we will all be connected


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## Cubenovice (Jul 30, 2010)

Not to take anything away from mr. Blonk but shouldn't we take "this guy" as the center of the cubieverse?

He's fixing the missing link so I think he deserves it.


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## qqwref (Aug 1, 2010)

Cubenovice said:


> Not to take anything away from mr. Blonk but shouldn't we take "this guy" as the center of the cubieverse?
> 
> He's fixing the missing link so I think he deserves it.



I disagree. This guy is a random unknown; the only reason the Dubai competition is unconnected is because cubing is obviously in its very earliest stages in that area of the world, and I think we can expect them to be much more well-connected in a few years, so he won't be important later. But Mr. (van der) Blonk gives us a nice set of coincedences: his name contains all the letters of "Kevin Bacon", and he has been the only one in the database to satisfy this criterion for at least some 7 years; but in addition the last part of his name is similar to that of Mr. Bacon in that it has the same number of letters and starts with the same letter. So I find it much more aesthetically pleasing to talk about Blonk numbers than to talk about Forootani numbers.


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## Stefan (Aug 1, 2010)

Also, "this guy" is guilty of *causing* the problem, so must be punished 

Oh well, the page is made so that Michiel is only the default center, you can still choose "this guy" or anyone else as the center instead if you want to.

It's a bit of a hack and isn't fully automated yet, I need to find out again how to update it. Have to prepare for my trip to US Nationals now, will update this when I'm back. Indeed the reappearance of Michiel strongly demands an update (although my own Blonk number won't improve, dammit).


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## HelpCube (Aug 1, 2010)

with michiel, my number is 2, because bob burton was at worlds 2005 and i was at a competition with him.

Same thing with lars.


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## Olivér Perge (Aug 1, 2010)

I'm happy to announce that we have the missing link in the cubeiverze!

Mohammad Forootani from Iran was competing at Austrian Open 2010 and he also took part at Dubai Open 2009. Thank you and congratulations, Mohammad!


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## qqwref (Aug 2, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> (although my own Blonk number won't improve, dammit).



I think this is a little much to ask!

Mine could stand some improvement, however.


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## JTW2007 (Aug 2, 2010)

My Blonk, Bruchem, and Vandenbergh numbers are all 2, via Dan Knights.


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## TeddyKGB (Aug 2, 2010)

qqwref said:


> Cubenovice said:
> 
> 
> > Not to take anything away from mr. Blonk but shouldn't we take "this guy" as the center of the cubieverse?
> ...



If you want a "kevin bacon" as the center of the cubieverse you should consider This guy


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## qqwref (Aug 3, 2010)

TeddyKGB said:


> qqwref said:
> 
> 
> > Cubenovice said:
> ...



Haha, nice find. Too bad he's only been to one competition (and it was a local one).


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## hawkmp4 (Aug 3, 2010)

The German Open 2010 had a fair number of high-profile people, though.


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## macky (Oct 21, 2011)

*bump*



macky said:


> I wrote a paper last year with someone who has an Erdős number of 4. We sent it off to a journal a while ago, but we haven't heard anything back since...I should go bug them.


 
This thing finally got published. I worked on the group-theoretic parts, through Theorem 4.2, one of our main results. It's not deep, but I think the paper motivates it well, and I was pretty proud of the proof. (The result reduces to the infinitude of a certain group, which is proved by constructing a surjection from the proper subgroup onto the whole group. This idea is from the standard proof of the infinitude of the Grigorchuk group, but the construction in our case took a lot more set-up.) Being from two years ago, though, the paper's not representative of my current interests.

So I have Blonk + Erdős = 1 + 5 = 6.

Oh, it looks like it'll take another half a year or so for the paper to get indexed on MathSciNet.

[edit March 17, 2012]
it took only five months!


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## Henrik (Oct 21, 2011)

That is great Macky!

I would like to know if this would be updated, it would be interesting to see how it all looks now, if we have all gotten closer in the cubieverse, or if there are larger distances now than before.


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## Cubenovice (Oct 21, 2011)

Henrik said:


> That is great Macky!
> 
> I would like to know if this would be updated, it would be interesting to see how it all looks now, if we have all gotten closer in the cubieverse, or if there are larger distances now than before.



Unfortunately not; My 2010 WCA ID is still not recognised by the cubieverse


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## Henrik (Oct 23, 2011)

Cubenovice said:


> Unfortunately not; My 2010 WCA ID is still not recognised by the cubieverse


 
Maybe I didn't ask in the right way, I know its not updated, I tested before asking, I was just wondering if Stefan would be so kind to update it.


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## Lid (May 26, 2013)

Pokes Stefan for an update


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## uyneb2000 (May 27, 2013)

My WCA ID doesn't work. :'(


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## TMOY (May 27, 2013)

That's only because the copy of the WCA database used is too old. An update would be nice, yes.


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## TDM (May 28, 2013)

Stefan said:


> But where do I start, who is the Kevin Bacon of cubing? Well, only one way to find out



But there are 4 of them now!


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## maderito (May 28, 2013)

What is the correlation between competitors' blonk averages and their number of competitions? Must be quite high.


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## Cubenovice (May 28, 2013)

maderito said:


> What is the correlation between competitors' blonk averages and their number of competitions? Must be quite high.



No, suppose you went to just one comp and Blonk was also there


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## CubeRoots (May 28, 2013)

Cubenovice said:


> No, suppose you went to just one comp and Blonk was also there



correlation


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

TDM said:


> But there are 4 of them now!



Holy cow!

My programs precomputing the data weren't exactly user-friendly and I don't know how to use them anymore and I have more important stuff to do, so it might take a while for me to update this if I ever get to it at all, sorry.


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