Dear Jasper,
 
Here is some fun for the Centenary of 2005.
 
I've known for some time that I had a direct link back to Arnold Sommerfeld through my Ph.D. advisor, Sebastian Doniach, whose Ph.D. advisor, Herbert Froehlich was a doctoral student of Sommerfeld. 
 
[put sample table here, or at the end]
 
Recently a collaborator told me about Erdös numbers
[http://www-users.med.cornell.edu/~jdvicto/erdos.html]which link 
mathematical scientists to Paul Erdös, a very prolific collaborator. My Erdös number is 6, where Erdös himself is assigned zero.
 
 
It seems that there is also an Einstein number. Pedro Goldman (UWO) was advised by Nathan Rosen, who wrote that famous Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky paper with Albert. Thus Pedro has an Einstein number of 2. Clearly YOU can be a 3 by writing a paper with Pedro!
 
Back in March 1999 APS News ran a contest on "Discovering Our Roots: The PhD Lineage Contest Winners", [http://www.aps.org/apsnews/0399/039916.cfm].
 
So my suggestion for a new Canadian contest to celebrate the "World Year of Physics 2005: Einstein in the 21st Century" is to launch a competition  amongst Canadian physicists (those with a professional position in physics) to see who can trace their genealogy back farthest, etc.
 
The table shown here shows that I have already tracked my own Ph.D. lineage further back from Sommerfeld through Felix Klein to Gauss on one branch, and to Leibniz via Fourier, Euler and two Bernoulli's on another. 
 
Through a connecting paper with John Pendry I can track back my British physics lineage through Mott and Fowler to Rutherford and J. J. Thomson, and earlier.
 
Some rules: apart from the doctoral inheritance and co-author links, some physicists might use an M.Sc. advisor, but there should be some archival evidence for the links.
 
Some websites which I found to be particularly helpful are:
http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/acknowledge.phtml
and
http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/index.html
 
Sincerely
 
Peter Loly, Manitoba
 
 
 

 

N

 

CAP member and Ph.D. inheritance

 

Erdös co-author link

Co-author (1983) and inheritance

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

Loly, Peter D. 1966

Erdös number 6 (E6)

 

Chan, Wayne (E5)

Pendry, Sir John

2

 

Doniach, Seb

 

Barber, D. (E4)

Heine, Volker

3

 

Froehlich, Herbert 1930

 

Ingram,G. (E3)

Mott, Sir Neville

4

 

Sommerfeld, Arnold 1891

 

Mysak, L. (E2)

Fowler, Ralph

5

 

Lindemann, C. L. F. 1873

 

Szekeres  G. (E1)

Darwin, C. G.

6

 

Klein, Felix 1868

 

Erdös, Paul (E0)

Rutherford, Lord Ernest

7

Plücker, Julius 1823

<-cosupervisors->

Lipshitz, Rudolf O. S. 1853

 

Thomson, Sir J. J.

8

Gerling, C. L. 1812

 

Dirichlet 1827 (cosupervisors)

 

Strutt, J. W. (Lord Rayleigh) 1873

9

Gauss 1799

 

Poisson, Fourier 1827

 

Routh, E. J.

10

Pfaff 1786

 

Lagrange

 

Hopkins, W.

11

Kaestner, Abraham 1739

 

 

Euler 1726

 

Sedgwick, A.

12

Hausen

 

Bernoulli, Johann 1694

 

 

13

Wickmannshausen

 

Bernoulli, Jacob

 

 

14

Mencken 1668

 

Leibniz 1666

 

 

15

 

 

Weigel 1634

 

 

 

Caption for Sample Table:

Column 1 just labels successive generations (N).

Column 3 begins with the CAP member listed in bold, with date of doctorate, followed in the next row by their doctoral advisor. This is then repeated for earlier generations until one draws a blank. It is often possible to find a doctoral date.

Columns 2 and 4 in the sample given allow for a branching which occurs with Klein having two advisors. In column 4 two students of Lagrange co-supervised Dirichlet.

Column 5 begins with a co-author who has an Erdös number, and the boxes beneath it link to people with lower Erdös numbers.

Column 6 gives an example of cross-linking afforded by co-authorship, with that person listed at the top in bold, followed by their inheritance column.