Six Degrees of Francis Bacon

You're all familiar with the play and film Six Degrees of Separation, and the Hollywood world trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? If not: the first is based on a loose empirical hypothesis in network theory that everyone in the world is connected by - at most - 6 or less friendship links. The second is based on the theory that Kevin Bacon is at the center of the film universe, and any actor or director can be connected to him by 6 or less film links.

What about a similar game for us nerds? Who is at the center of the scholarly universe - which, I might add, is a bit more extensive than Hollywood? Another Bacon: Francis. So, Six Degrees of Francis Bacon. Let's see what we can do.

Here are a few all-time superstars: Isaac Newton, Socrates, Albert Einstein, Confucius.

• Isaac Newton applied the scientific method to religious texts; the scientific method was first fully propounded by Rene Descartes in his Discourse on Method; the Discourse built upon the work in logic in Bacon's Novum Organum.
• Socrates was the teacher of Plato, Plato the teacher of Aristotle; Aristotle wrote Organon, which was what Bacon set out to improve upon in Novum Organum.
• Einstein said he believed in "Spinoza's God"; Spinoza's Ethics are an application of Francis Bacon's logical methods.
• Confucius' philosophy was adopted by Emperor Wu; Wu also sponsored advances in gunpowder and alchemy; one of the first Europeans to credit gunpowder to the Chinese (and also an avid alchemist) was Francis Bacon.

Too easy.

(Hmm, I guess I'm not the first one to have this idea; there's already a DVD, and 6,000 exact Google matches. Geez. I wrote this post because I was getting frustrated trying to find an original research idea. I can't even find an original blog idea!).