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Comment by lqet | Hacker News Reader

If you think of it, there should be quite a few people alive today who had a grandfather that could've been a schoolmate of Napoleon Bonaparte (who was born in 1769). If you grandfather fathered a child at 80 (which is entirely impossible), and your father got you when he was 80 too, and if you are 90 in 2019, then your grandfather was born in 1769.

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> quite a few people

> grandfather fathered a child at 80... , and your father got you when he was 80 too, and if you are 90

I don't think these things are as common as you think they are.

No, but there are like 7 billion people, and until very recently polygyny was widespread around the globe. A male usually needs to be wealthy to have multiple wives, but those are precisely the sorts of males that are likely to have above average lifespans. And, of course, serial monogamy has similar causes and effects.

My spouse had two maternal grandmothers. When the elder one could no longer have children (or perhaps didn't wish to have any more), not yet having borne a son, she arranged for a second wife. My spouse's grandfather was in his 70s when his last child, a son, was a born. And this man was simply a middle-class shopkeeper.[1]

People don't talk much about polygyny because it's awkward in modern culture, even in places like Africa and Asia where it's often only one generation removed, if that.

[1] AFAIU, polygyny is still legal in that country, Malaysia, though now permitted of Muslims only. Whereas previously polygyny was practiced by Muslims, Chinese, possibly Indians (not sure), and presumably the indigenous population as well.

> which is entirely impossible

isn't?

No, an 80 year old man is capable of fathering a child.

Ramjit Raghav claims to have fathered his second child at age 96 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjit_Raghav

That was my point.

...really?

Yeah, men produce sperm for their whole life.

I read that as "incapable" for some reason.

Yes, which is why it should be “isn't entirely impossible” not “is entirely impossible”.

Sorry, that was a typo - clearly I meant "possible" here!

Most complicated game of Six of Degrees of Kevin Bacon[0] that I've heard of. :)

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon

What I find funny about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is that he is married to Kyra Sedgwick, who is the half-sister of jazz guitarist Mike Stern. Mike Stern played with Miles Davis and Miles Davis is basically the Paul Erdos or Kevin Bacon of jazz.

I've heard that Kevin Bacon isn't actually the Kevin Bacon of the Kevin Bacon game; some researchers a few years back crunched the numbers and determined that the most-connected actor was actually Rod Steiger (having starred in a wide range of highbrow and lowbrow movies over a very long career).

Maybe somebody else has since overtaken Steiger, though. Maybe even Kevin Bacon himself!

Edit to add: ha, I see there's a calculation at The Oracle of Bacon: http://oracleofbacon.org/center_list.php Not sure how frequently this is updated, but the top few names definitely sound plausible.

Bacon is actually #565 on that list. Probably not a serious contender :)

Interesting to see the first woman on that list is at #21 (Geraldine Chaplin).

> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-pig-virus-potential-t...

I submit Danny Trejo as a candidate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Trejo_filmography

Could have been Steiger at some point - only Trevor Howard (just) above him in the list predeceased him.

If you find it funny that Kevin Bacon is within 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon of someone else, you're kind of misunderstanding the idea of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Challenge: Find the link between Kevin Bacon and President Tyler

On a podcast I listened to recently, Kevin Bacon said he didn't really like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon because he felt it was fun of him at his expense.

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