“Tell him to do with the $1,000 what I did.”

October 7, 2016 11:35 AM

Charles Krauthammer on Paul Erdős.
posted by dfm500 (17 comments total)

Beautiful remembrance of an amazing man.
posted by pwinn at 11:58 AM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mefi Erdős posts that aren't just about his eponymous number:

The purpose of life is to keep the SF's score low. (Mostly about the 1993 documentary N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős. The link in the post has been long since DMCA-ed out of existence, but here's a fresh one).
Counting (favorite subjects links to the Notices of the AMS feature on The Mathematics of Paul Erdős)
posted by zamboni at 12:04 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Deborah Heiligman wrote a lovely storybook about Erdős called The Boy Who Loved Math. It has long been one of my son's favorite books, despite the fact that he hates math, because he sees some of himself in the boy Paul Erdős, who didn't quite fit in but was loved by lots of people anyhow.

"He leaves no immediate survivors." is perhaps the most untrue thing ever published in an obituary. My son does not have (and likely will not have) an Erdős number, but in his own way he and the many other children who have read Heiligman's book and seen themselves in it are his legacy, too.
posted by anastasiav at 12:31 PM on October 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

It's fitting that math is the geek prime from which all other geek activities follow.
posted by Beholder at 12:50 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

.
(for Paul Erdős)

Side note: How strange, these days, to find myself in sympathy with Charles Krauthammer about a current news story.
posted by mosk at 1:11 PM on October 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

"...a current news story."

Timeless, but not current; the column was written shortly after Erdos died in 1996.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:14 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I often call small children "epsilons", thanks to an Erdosism learned maybe from that 1987 article referenced in this piece. And think of a bunch of the anecdotes told there, like his calling a colleague in California with a discovery over dinner with colleagues in Prague, and when scolded that "it's the middle of the night in California" he responded with something like, "oh good, he'll be home", sure that the professor would want to hear what they'd learned. And now I can think of him when paying it forward, too, which is great.
posted by ldthomps at 1:37 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

> Timeless, but not current; the column was written shortly after Erdos died in 1996.

Ah, OK, that makes sense. Yeah, I had thought he (Erdős) had passed away some time ago. I saw the date of his passing in the article -- "Friday, Sept. 20" -- and I ASSumed it was recent. Nope. Thanks for clearing that up!
posted by mosk at 1:44 PM on October 7, 2016

I've always found The Two Cultures of Mathematics to be helpful in understanding Erdos.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:51 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

It is a nice column but … why would anyone care what Charles Krauthammer, of all people, had to say about Erdős? Twenty years ago, no less.
posted by kenko at 3:04 PM on October 7, 2016

I loathe Krauthammer, but I thought it was a lovely obit and I can put aside who wrote it.
posted by thelonius at 3:12 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

He is also a patron saint to stimulant users.

Erdös first did mathematics at the age of three, but for the last twenty-five years of his life, since the death of this mother, he put in nineteen-hour days, keeping himself fortified with 10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin, strong espresso, and caffeine tablets. "A mathematician," Erdös was fond of saying, "is a machine for tuning coffee into theorems." When friends urged him to slow down, he always had the same response: "There'll be plenty of time to rest in the grave."

From Paul Hoffman's biography, see here.

Once, a friend bet Erdös five hundred dollars that he could not quit amphetamines for a month. Erdös took the bet and won, but, during his time of abstinence, he found himself incapable of doing any serious work. “You’ve set mathematics back a month,” he told his friend when he collected, and immediately returned to his pills.

From here.
posted by grobstein at 3:55 PM on October 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

As a small child of a mathematician father, I was called epsilon.
posted by sciencegeek at 4:20 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Once upon a time long ago, I presented a paper at the American Math conference in Denver. At the end I announced that I'd just found 18 primes in arithmetic progression, and had copies of a poster announcing the result. The last person to ask for one I realized was Paul Erdős. Unfortunately, I had run out. Still, a moment I treasure.
posted by oluckyman at 4:22 PM on October 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

I met him a few times as an undergrad when he guest lectured my honors math courses. This was at Memphis State University, a place better known for the quality of the basketball team at the time, and yet 3 of his top 5 most frequent collaborators taught and researched there: Ralph Faudree, Richard Schelp, and Cecil Rousseau.

As I think I've said on a blue page before, he was a delightful man. Eccentric? Well, yes, when you consider he traveled and didn't worry about arrangements. I was told then by faculty the stories that you hear repeated - that he really did show up, have long conversations in the night, and then ask if they would mind letting him stay at their house.

He wandered around wearing sky blue socks and sandals, one armed locked behind his back behind the other, looking, as a friend at the time said, like he was thinking so deeply that if you could think the same thing your head would explode.

I remember the first time he showed up on campus. Actually, I remember a couple of weeks beforehand, because there was a tension in the air of Dunn Hall, the building that housed the mathematics department. I asked my prof what was going on, and he said, "Oh... Erdos is showing up in a few days. He'll stay here 2 weeks. We won't sleep. And then we'll spend the rest of the semester recovering."
posted by grimjeer at 4:43 PM on October 7, 2016 [26 favorites]

Usually despise whatever that pompous windbag Krauthammer had to say, but this was elegant and thoughtful. My father-in-law gave me The Man Who Loved Only Numbers a few years ago. Most of the anecdotes given in the article were in that book. A final note: my Erdös number is 3.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:40 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

There's a lovely photo from 1985 of Paul Erdős with 10 year old Terry Tao, taken in the tea room of the old mathematics building at the University of Adelaide. (Just google "terry tao and paul erdos"). I remember watching on at the time and thinking (a) "this is just so artificial and cringe-worthy: get a room for them if you expect them to be able to work on anything of any value", and (b) "leave them alone", as the photographer kept swooping in to get a better shot. In retrospect, it's a lovely souvenir, and Tao has fond memories of Erdős "treating me as an equal" at the event.

So it's sweet that Tao has ended up solving a couple of Erdős's famous problems: the one involving Rankin's formula (for how large prime gaps can get, below a given number), and the Erdős Discrepancy Problem.
posted by pjm at 5:02 PM on October 8, 2016 [2 favorites]