The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth

By Paul Hoffman

Book Overview

"A funny, marvelously readable portrait of one of the most brilliant and eccentric men in history." --The Seattle Times

Paul Erdos was an amazing and prolific mathematician whose life as a world-wandering numerical nomad was legendary. He published almost 1500 scholarly papers before his death in 1996, and he probably thought more about math problems than anyone in history. Like a traveling salesman offering his thoughts as wares, Erdos would show up on the doorstep of one mathematician or another and announce, "My brain is open." After working through a problem, he'd move on to the next place, the next solution.

Hoffman's book, like Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind, reveals a genius's life that transcended the merely quirky. But Erdos's brand of madness was joyful, unlike Nash's despairing schizophrenia. Erdos never tried to dilute his obsessive passion for numbers with ordinary emotional interactions, thus avoiding hurting the people around him, as Nash did. Oliver Sacks writes of Erdos: "A mathematical genius of the first order, Paul Erdos was totally obsessed with his subject--he thought and wrote mathematics for nineteen hours a day until the day he died. He traveled constantly, living out of a plastic bag, and had no interest in food, sex, companionship, art--all that is usually indispensable to a human life."

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is easy to love, despite his strangeness. It's hard not to have affection for someone who referred to children as "epsilons," from the Greek letter used to represent small quantities in mathematics; a man whose epitaph for himself read, "Finally I am becoming stupider no more"; and whose only really necessary tool to do his work was a quiet and open mind.

Hoffman, who followed and spoke with Erdos over the last 10 years of his life, introduces us to an undeniably odd, yet pure and joyful, man who loved numbers more than he loved God--whom he referred to as SF, for Supreme Fascist. He was often misunderstood, and he certainly annoyed people sometimes, but Paul Erdos is no doubt missed. --Therese Littleton

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786863625
• ISBN13: 9780786863624
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.7" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 18 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Postsecondary to Grade 12

Customer Reviews

A reflection on the impact of being a lover of math

I picked this book up by chance and found that I couldn't put it down. I carried it everywhere I went in order to read more as soon as I could. This book was a reflection on the life of Paul Erdos but also to my great surprise on many other mathematicians. This book is a great way to discover how math has impacted and changed not only the mathematicians lives but ours from their discoveries.

A Good Look at a Great Mathematician

The story of Paul Erdos was fantastic and fascinating. To begin with, he had no home. His entire earthly belongings were in two suitcases; one held a few items of clothing, the other was full of mathematical papers which accompanied him as he traveled around the world going from one mathematics conference to another, pausing long enough only to deposit some works in an archive at the home of Ronald Graham and Fan Chung, a husband-and-wife team of remarkable mathematicians in their own right.Paul Erdos was known as the greatest of mathematical collaborators; he co-authored far more papers with other mathematicians than did anyone else. The extent of his collaborations with other matheamticians has given rise to what is now known as the 'Erdos number' which is simply this: If you co-authored a paper with Erdos you have an Erdos number of one, if you wrote a paper with someone who wrote a paper with Erdos, your Erdos number is two, and so forth and so on. As far as I know, the highest Erdos number is eight. Approximately five hundred mathematitians have an Erdos number of one, the number having an Erdos number of two or higher is well into the thousands; a compete listing is maintained by Jerry Grossman of Oakland University. Erdos had virtually his own language, to him the Unites States was 'Sam' (for Uncle Sam) and the Soviet Union was 'Joe' (for its long-time leader Joseph Stalin.) Women were 'bosses' and men were 'slaves'. A person 'died' when he or she ceased doing mathematics; when that same person actually expired, he or she 'left'.This book gives a good look at what goes on in the mind of a mathematician. While there is plenty of mathematics in this volume, the book is written in such a manner as to be understandable by anyone with a high-school education; little or no specialized training in mathematics is required to reap full enjoyment from it. Even if you are unfamiliar with such concepts as Mersenne or Fermat primes or repunits, this book will be both entertaining and enlightening. I believe this book is a better 'read' than Sylvia Nasar's "A Beautiful Mind;" the major focus of the latter book was not so much about mathematics as it was about schizophrenia.There is no doubt that Paul Erdos was one of the most extraordinary people you could ever wast to meet. This work belongs in the library of any person who may be even the least bit curious about what goes on on the mind of an extraordinary human being.

What a biography should be

Paul Erdos, a giant of twnetieth century mathematics, takes center stage in this biography which discusses the extent of both his brilliance and eccentricities. This is a man who made up his own language, roamed the world to discuss mathematical theory, befriended and frustrated his hosts and collabortators, and in is universally remembered as a loving genius. The book itself is a series of vignettes about Erdos's life woven together with explanations of numberous mathematical problems and theories, as well as stories of other math legends. It is very inclusive of the Erdos's predecessors as well as contemporaries, and shows the evolution of mathematics, within the larger context of a biography.I loved this book, mainly because of Erdos, who was a wonderful character. I was a poor math student in school, but Hoffman's descriptions made these incredibly complex ideas that Erdos played with understandable and interesting. Also, I learned a lot about the field of mathematics, mathematicians, and about passion. These men and women devote their lives to theorems that may never have any real appication, but they do it because of a love for the subject. It was facsinating and inspiring throughout, and a wonderful book for those who want a good story, great characters, and an understandable lesson in math.

Inspiring peek at an exceptional mathematician

This book should be required reading for anyone who is currently studying mathematics, but I would also highly recommend it for anyone remotely intrigued by the magic of numbers. As a math major I have at times grown weary of slogging through theorem after theorem, but I picked up Hoffman's book for a little summer reading, and was immediately captivated. My awe of the beauty of mathematics was totally resuscitated from the third year slump to which it had fallen victim. I was at turns amused, educated, inspired and touched. Hoffman deftly interlaces anecdotes about Paul Erdos with tales of some of the finest mathematical minds, and many of their most important discoveries. This is not just a mere biography of a great mathematician, and those who approach it as such will miss the whole point. It is not only about Paul Erdos but about "the search for mathematical truth", the tragedy of failure as well as the ecstasy of the perfect proof, "straight from the Book". Mathematics was Erdos' life. To separate him from the body of knowledge that he embraced and spent his life furthering would be a complete disservice, and would give only a fraction of his story.

A biography that mostly isn't one

Being something of a 'lapsed' mathematician (long ago math major, long unused), I'm always interested in books that involve numbers and people who love numbers. I'm usually not fond of biographies, but I'd heard good things about this one and decided to give it a try. To my surprise and joy, it turned out to be more about numbers and math in general, than about those irritating details of a person's life that usually get in the way of a good read. I agree with one of the earlier reviews here that trying to write an entire book devoted just to Paul Erdos would probably have been futile -- his entire life was numbers. This book opens doors for people who aren't familiar with the various theories and offers some 'math surprises' for those of us who were familiar with math in a former life. I'm still puzzling over the tiling result. (Sorry, you'll have to read the book to find out what it was.) Loved it. Highly recommend it. Have so far purchased two copies as gifts and will likely purchase at least two more (I have a lot of math-oriented friends).