7,905,795 connections

Question

I see there are 7,905,795 ways in which a relatively random (or eclectic) selection of four people are connected to a person on Wikitree. What is the significance of the number? Is it x^y ? As people are added, will it change? Could it become different between each of the four and the root person as it once was? Has it evolved to this number as errors in the grid were found?

Answer 1

It's not magic, it's just the number of profiles that have the Bacon box (minus 1).  The other 2 million don't have one yet because they're in detached islands with no connection found to the rest of the world.

The number changes every night as new profiles are added and merges are done and errors are fixed.

Differences happen if somebody's numbers are above and below 100, because the Finder cuts off at 100 steps.

Comments

Can they be different from each other?

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In an ideal world, no.  In reality, they could if the 100-generation limit comes into play, or if the tree changes while the calculations are in progress, or if there's a glitch somewhere.