The man who loved only numbers : the story of Paul Erdős and the search for mathematical truth

Based on a National Magazine Award-winning article, this masterful biography of Hungarian-born Paul Erdos is both a vivid portrait of an eccentric genius and a layman's guide to some of this century's most startling mathematical discoveries. "Paul Erdos, the most prolific and eccentric mathematician of our time, forsook all creature comforts - including a hometo pursue his lifelong study of numbers. He was a man who possessed unimaginable powers of thought yet was unable to manage some of the simplest daily tasks." "For more than six decades, Erdos lived out of two tattered suitcases, crisscrossing four continents at a frenzied pace, chasing mathematical problems and fresh talent. Erdos saw mathematics as a search for lasting beauty and ultimate truth. It was a search Erdos never abandoned, even as his life was torn asunder by some of the major political dramas of our time." "In this biography, Hoffman uses Erdos's life and work to introduce readers to a cast of remarkable geniuses, from Archimedes to Stanislaw Ulam, one of the chief minds behind the Los Alamos nuclear project. He draws on years of interviews with Ronald Graham and Fan Chung, Erdos's chief American caretakers and devoted collaborators. With an eye for the hilarious anecdote, Hoffman explains mathematical problems from Fermat's Last Theorem to the more frivolous "Monty Hall dilemma." What emerges is an intimate look at the world of mathematics and an indelible portrait of Erdos, a charming and impish philosopher-scientist whose accomplishments continue to enrich and inform our world."--Jacket The Man Who Loved Only Numbers ......Page 1 Contents ......Page 6 0: The Two-and-a-Half-Billion-Year-Old Man ......Page 12 1: Straight from the BOOK ......Page 34 2: Epszi's Enigma ......Page 68 e: Problems with Sam and Joe ......Page 112 3: Einstein vs. Dostoyevsky ......Page 148 π: Dr. Worst Case ......Page 162 4: Marginal Revenge......Page 196 5: "God Made the Integers" ......Page 220 6: Getting the Goat ......Page 258 7: Survivors' Party ......Page 272 ∞: "We Mathematicians Are All a Little Bit Crazy"......Page 288 Acknowledgments and Source Notes ......Page 294 Bibliography ......Page 304 Index ......Page 314