Paul Erdos (sometimes Erd?s or Erdös) is a Hungarian mathematician who gained fame from his prolific essays and papers concerning numbers. For a person who only loved numbers, scientists coined the term “Erdos number” to pertain to a “collaborative distance” comparing a person to Erdos himself in authoring mathematical papers. The web comic XKCD used the “Paul Erdos” term to pertain to a student who took so long to finishing the recent Math Regents exams.Paul Erdős was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 26, 1913. After his siblings died before his birth at the ages
of 3 and 5, he was the only child of Anna and Lajos Erdős. His parents were both Jewish mathematicians, from a vibrant
intellectual community. At the age of three, he could calculate how many seconds his family's friends
had lived.:66 Erdős showed early promise as a prodigy.
Both of Erdős's parents were high school mathematics teachers, and Erdős received much of his early
education from them. Erdős always remembered his parents with great affection. At 16, his father introduced
him to two of his lifetime favorite subjects—infinite series and set theory. During high school, Erdős became
an ardent solver of the problems proposed each month in KöMaL, the Mathematical and Physical Monthly for
Secondary Schools. Erdős later published several articles in it about problems in elementary plane geometry
At the age of 21 (1934), he was awarded a doctorate in mathematics.Because anti-Semitism was increasing, he moved
that same year to Manchester, England, to be a guest lecturer. In 1938, he accepted his first American position as
a scholarship holder at Princeton University. At this time, he began to develop the habit of traveling from campus
to campus. He would not stay long in one place and traveled back and forth among mathematical institutions until
his death.
Possessions meant little to Erdős; most of his belongings would fit in a suitcase, as dictated
by his itinerant lifestyle. Awards and other earnings were generally donated to people in need
and various worthy causes. He spent most of his life as a vagabond, traveling between scientific
conferences and the homes of colleagues all over the world. He would typically show up at a colleague's
doorstep and announce "my brain is open," staying long enough to collaborate on a few papers before moving
on a few days later. In many cases, he would ask the current collaborator about whom he (Erdős) should visit next.
His working style has been humorously compared to traversing a linked list.
His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős
drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős himself.)[7] After 1971 he
also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could
not stop taking the drug for a month.Erdős won the bet, but complained during his abstinence that mathematics
had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now
all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine habit.
He had his own idiosyncratic vocabulary: he spoke of "The Book", an imaginary book in which God
had written down the best and most elegant proofs for mathematical theorems. Lecturing in 1985
he said, "You don't have to believe in God, but you should believe in The Book." He himself doubted
the existence of God, whom he called the "Supreme Fascist" (SF). He accused the SF of hiding his socks
and Hungarian passports, and of keeping the most elegant mathematical proofs to himself. When he saw a
particularly beautiful mathematical proof he would exclaim, "This one's from The Book!". This later inspired
a book entitled Proofs from THE BOOK.
of 3 and 5, he was the only child of Anna and Lajos Erdős. His parents were both Jewish mathematicians, from a vibrant
intellectual community. At the age of three, he could calculate how many seconds his family's friends
had lived.:66 Erdős showed early promise as a prodigy.
Both of Erdős's parents were high school mathematics teachers, and Erdős received much of his early
education from them. Erdős always remembered his parents with great affection. At 16, his father introduced
him to two of his lifetime favorite subjects—infinite series and set theory. During high school, Erdős became
an ardent solver of the problems proposed each month in KöMaL, the Mathematical and Physical Monthly for
Secondary Schools. Erdős later published several articles in it about problems in elementary plane geometry
At the age of 21 (1934), he was awarded a doctorate in mathematics.Because anti-Semitism was increasing, he moved
that same year to Manchester, England, to be a guest lecturer. In 1938, he accepted his first American position as
a scholarship holder at Princeton University. At this time, he began to develop the habit of traveling from campus
to campus. He would not stay long in one place and traveled back and forth among mathematical institutions until
his death.
Possessions meant little to Erdős; most of his belongings would fit in a suitcase, as dictated
by his itinerant lifestyle. Awards and other earnings were generally donated to people in need
and various worthy causes. He spent most of his life as a vagabond, traveling between scientific
conferences and the homes of colleagues all over the world. He would typically show up at a colleague's
doorstep and announce "my brain is open," staying long enough to collaborate on a few papers before moving
on a few days later. In many cases, he would ask the current collaborator about whom he (Erdős) should visit next.
His working style has been humorously compared to traversing a linked list.
His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős
drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős himself.)[7] After 1971 he
also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could
not stop taking the drug for a month.Erdős won the bet, but complained during his abstinence that mathematics
had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now
all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine habit.
He had his own idiosyncratic vocabulary: he spoke of "The Book", an imaginary book in which God
had written down the best and most elegant proofs for mathematical theorems. Lecturing in 1985
he said, "You don't have to believe in God, but you should believe in The Book." He himself doubted
the existence of God, whom he called the "Supreme Fascist" (SF). He accused the SF of hiding his socks
and Hungarian passports, and of keeping the most elegant mathematical proofs to himself. When he saw a
particularly beautiful mathematical proof he would exclaim, "This one's from The Book!". This later inspired
a book entitled Proofs from THE BOOK.
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