Paul Erdös was one of the most eminent mathematicians of the twentieth century, as famed for his prolific output and outsize capacity for abstract mathematic comprehension as he was for his incurable wanderlust and distaste for sleep. His extraordinary productivity, preference...
[more]Paul Erdös was one of the most eminent mathematicians of the twentieth century, as famed for his prolific output and outsize capacity for abstract mathematic comprehension as he was for his incurable wanderlust and distaste for sleep. His extraordinary productivity, preference for collaboration, and easy amiability have contributed to the creation of what is known as the Erdös number, a kind of taxonomical/numerical ordering for how close others are to him, based on their proximity to his published papers: those who worked directly with him have an Erdös number of 1, those who worked with someone who worked directly with him have an Erdös number of 2, and so on; those who have no such connection have an Erdös number of, according to the source, either infinity or undefined.
The contemporary art scene's response to this is the Chippendale number. The extraordinarily prolific musician and visual artist Brian Chippendale founded Fort Thunder, in which innumerable artists and bands lived and worked, and he has collaborated with a tremendously varied group and amount of people, among them Björk, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Thurston Moore, Boredoms, Brian Gibson, with whom he is in Lightning Bolt, and Mat Brinkman, with whom he is in Mindflayer. He has designed all Lightning Bolt releases and many of their posters and has participated in several solo and joint exhibitions of his multimedia projects. His comics Ninja and the Maggots series are among the most acclaimed of the late-20th and early-21st century. Despite the sundry qualities of his remarkable output, certain consistent thrusts and elements – most somewhat ineffable, but among them are formal and allusive experimentations with accessibility and approachability that belie an insouciant charm and innocence – unite his work, and Chippendale's mind can be discerned beneath all of his projects, to say nothing of the many that mimic his aesthetic. Because of this, few who have heard his music, scene his visual art, or read his comics may feel that they do not, in some sense, know the man; it may be that no one has a Chippendale number of infinity.
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