PAUL ERDÖS Erdös was an interesting mathematician. He firmly believed in the beauty of mathematics, and was considered to be a founder of mathematical truth. His studies focused mostly on number theory, combinatorics, and graph theory.

Life Timeline Erdös was born in Hungary to a Jewish family in 1913. His parents where mathematics teachers. At a young age he

was introduced complex mathematical ideas, that some of us may only be introduced to at a graduate level.

During his teens, he actively responded to posed problems from KöMaL.

He studied in Budapest, Hungary where he earned a doctorate in 1934 (he was only 21).

He was essentially forced out of Hungary and thus, his travels began.

In 1949, he and Selberg discovered an elementary proof for the Prime Number Theorem.

Erdös dies in 1996. In 1998, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is released as a

biography of Erdös. It includes many personal stories and the many success of his lifetime.

Travels

Property was considered to be nuisance to Erdös.

He essentially lived out of a suitcase as he traveled around the globe to study mathematics.

He spent time in the US, the UK, Canada, France, Hungary, Israel, Australia, the Netherlands, and many other countries.

Erdös frequently resided with Ronald Graham and his wife Fan Chung Graham. Graham was in a sense, some stability for Erdös.

Posed Problems and Successes

Erdös posed several problems throughout his lifetime. His problems included a prize in reward to a correct solution. The higher the prize money, the harder the problem.

Erdös was credited and or co credited to over 1,000 papers. (http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/Erdos.html)

Many mathematicians and aspiring math students considered meeting Erdös an honor.

Erdös Number

An Erdös number is defined by how close you are to working on a paper with him.

Erdös, himself has an Erdös number of 0, while those who co-authored a paper with him had an Erdös number of 1.

If you co-author a paper with someone who has an Erdös number of 1, then you are a 2.

Wikipedia actually has a list (surely it is incomplete) of people with Erdös numbers ranging from 1 to 3, with over 500 people having a number 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_by_Erd%C5%91s_number

Sources

http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Erdos.html

http://www.ams.org/notices/199801/comm-erdos.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Graham http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/Erdos.html http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number http://www.komal.hu/info/miazakomal.e.shtml The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul

Hoffman