Paul Erdös

1. 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.

2. 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. • Erdösdies 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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