Does everyone in your profession have a "Papal Number", talk about it
sometimes over beer, and sometimes put it in resumes?
No.
Does the Erdos number matter to any sorts of decisions or evaluations
in mathematics? That is, is a mathematician defined by his Erdos
number in any way? Nobody is disputing that [[Erdos number]] should
exist... just whether it's a useful way to classify mathematicians in
an encyclopedia.
-Phil