This is a fine book about Erdös, sympathetically written by someone who understood well what an amazing, unique person he was. The world of mathematics still misses him badly it would be nice to think that he was up there in the Heavenly Math Institute, publishing joint papers with Pythagoras and Gauss. If there is a God, I'm sure He has some equally insulting pet name for Erdös. I don't think he meant any harm by this: it's just the kind of thing mathematicians think is funny. He was in particular famous for his habit of calling God 'The Supreme Fascist', or 'The S.F.' for short. Like many mathematicians, Erdös had an unusual way of talking, and liked making up his own names for things.

I keep trying to find a 3 who wants to write a joint paper with me, but so far unsuccessfully. Low numbers are much sought after if you're wondering, I'm a 5, which is so-so. If you published a paper with a person who's a 1, you're a 2, and so on. If you published a joint paper with him, your number is 1. He collaborated with over 500 different people on over 1400 published papers, and every researcher now talks about their 'Erdös number'. I'm afraid you don't understand mathematicians' priorities.Īs the title says, Erdös loved only numbers, and he wanted to share that love with the whole world. He'd often reward them with a couple of ideas so brilliant that their whole careers would be revitalized, or pushed in some exciting new direction they hadn't even suspected might exist. He might turn up on someone's doorstep and expect them to feed him and give him a place to sleep for a few nights. I see that another reviewer has called him a 'hanger-on'. He was the Saint Francis of Mathematics he had no possessions, and just wandered around the world doing math research with like-minded people. I originally wanted to be a mathematician, and I'm still enough of one that I am completely in awe of Erdös.

The man who loved only numbers