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Available
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Publication
London, Fourth Estate
Description
"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.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member iayork
Eminently Fascinating: Having stopped learning math in high school, competent, but not excellent at it, this book was a great romp of mathematical trivia. As a biography it is a little scattered in focus, but the life of Paul Erdos was befitting of such an approach. One of the great minds in the
I have heard there is another biography of Erdos out there that deals more directly with his life and ideas, and if one were looking for a more focused biography, it would probably be a better choice. But The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is a great read for its insight and entertainment value. Yes, it made math fun, and for the most part understandable.
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history of math, more published than almost any other, thinking things only a handful of others could grasp, Erdos was a personification of the absent-minded thinker. Which could sometimes make for a hard subject to write the life of. Having never heard of Erdos until I read this book, it proved to be a competent and entertaining book about the man's life and quirks and some of his ideas. But the true strength of this book is its branching out into the ideas of the world of mathematics. Taking asides that last ten pages or more, Paul Hoffman explores the foundations and revolutions and some of the quirkier trivia tidbits of the world of mathematics. Making this work as much a fun romp through the interesting parts of math and part biography of a quixotic man who lived math. I have heard there is another biography of Erdos out there that deals more directly with his life and ideas, and if one were looking for a more focused biography, it would probably be a better choice. But The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is a great read for its insight and entertainment value. Yes, it made math fun, and for the most part understandable.
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LibraryThing member nickp
An abolute gem of a book about a truly singular individual. Apart from his own contribution to mathematics, he seems to have had a gift for asking just the right question of the right people. A fascinating character and an excellent read - even for the non-mathematician.
LibraryThing member Andromeda_Yelton
Hilarious and quotable -- at least if you were a math major. I have no idea how people not steeped in math culture would relate to this book, but for me, it was a charming tour of familiar territory, and a good set of anecdotes about the greatest mathematician of recent memory.
LibraryThing member setnahkt
There seems to be a thin line between being an eccentric genius and an incandescent excretory orifice; Paul Hoffman’s biography of Paul Erdős, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, sometimes puts Erdős straddling the line. I think some of this is sour grapes; there’s a temptation for the ordinary
Nevertheless, Erdős was definitely at least a quarter bubble off level. His typical routine consisted of showing up – often unannounced – at a colleague’s house and expecting to be fed and maintained for a couple of weeks. His initial greeting would be something like “Hello. Let n be an integer…” He would fiddle with the air conditioning, try to feed the dogs breakfast cereal, make disastrous attempts at cooking for himself, and generally act like Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner – except the host would get several academic papers out of the encounter. This led to the invention of the Erdős number: if you were Paul Erdős, your Erdős number was zero. If you had published a paper with Paul Erdős, your Erdős number is 1. If you published a paper with someone who had, in turn, published a paper with Erdős, your Erdős number is 2, and so on. Hoffman is not a mathematician and is thus sometimes at a loss for things to say about Erdős; thus he relates that when Henry Aaron was trying to break Babe Ruth’s home run record, Emory mathematician Carl Pomerance noted that 714 X 715 (Ruth’s number and Aaron’s target) was the product of the first seven primes, and that the sum of the prime factors of 714 was also the sum of the prime factors of 715, leading to the discovery of “Ruth-Aaron Numbers”, consecutive integers with these properties (the next pair is 18490 and 18491). Erdős had never heard of Pomerance but called him, leading to the publication of 21 papers. Pomerance persuaded Erdős to come to Emory and get an honorary degree; by coincidence Henry Aaron received an honorary degree at the same convocation and Pomerance persuaded them to sign a baseball – leading to Hoffman’s point in the anecdote: Henry Aaron has an Erdős number of 1, if you count baseballs.
There are lots of amusing little anecdotes like this – I suppose this is the only way a casual reader is likely to read the book. My favorite is the account of René Descartes encountering a ruffian while escorting a lady of the evening, quickly whipping out his rapier and disarming the thug, then commenting that he wouldn’t kill him because “…he was too ugly to die before such a beautiful lady”. I never realized Descartes was a swordsman. It would take the mind of a sadist to expand on the anecdote and speculate what might have happened if he had stepped to the front to defend an entire troop of harlots this way – but that would be putting Descartes before the whores.
It is somewhat gratifying to find that Erdős was stumped by Marilyn vos Savant’s “Monty Hall” problem; Erdős, like a substantial fraction of the world’s mathematicians, assumed that no advantage would be gained by switching doors (if you’re not familiar with the problem I suggest googling, it’s too long to explain it here). Hoffman correctly points out that this is actually a case of Bayesian probability – but unfortunately doesn’t explain why. Interestingly enough for a book on a mathematician whose main interest was number theory, when I tried to look up the details I found that the book’s index is incorrect. Apparently a 16-page photo section was added without re-indexing; thus every index entry after page 148 is incorrect. I was pleased to find that I still have a sufficient grasp of mathematics to b e able to add 16 to everything. Although I tried subtracting 16 first.
Good light reading for the slightly mathematically inclined.
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to find lapses in the genius – hence all the stories about Einstein forgetting to wear socks.Nevertheless, Erdős was definitely at least a quarter bubble off level. His typical routine consisted of showing up – often unannounced – at a colleague’s house and expecting to be fed and maintained for a couple of weeks. His initial greeting would be something like “Hello. Let n be an integer…” He would fiddle with the air conditioning, try to feed the dogs breakfast cereal, make disastrous attempts at cooking for himself, and generally act like Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner – except the host would get several academic papers out of the encounter. This led to the invention of the Erdős number: if you were Paul Erdős, your Erdős number was zero. If you had published a paper with Paul Erdős, your Erdős number is 1. If you published a paper with someone who had, in turn, published a paper with Erdős, your Erdős number is 2, and so on. Hoffman is not a mathematician and is thus sometimes at a loss for things to say about Erdős; thus he relates that when Henry Aaron was trying to break Babe Ruth’s home run record, Emory mathematician Carl Pomerance noted that 714 X 715 (Ruth’s number and Aaron’s target) was the product of the first seven primes, and that the sum of the prime factors of 714 was also the sum of the prime factors of 715, leading to the discovery of “Ruth-Aaron Numbers”, consecutive integers with these properties (the next pair is 18490 and 18491). Erdős had never heard of Pomerance but called him, leading to the publication of 21 papers. Pomerance persuaded Erdős to come to Emory and get an honorary degree; by coincidence Henry Aaron received an honorary degree at the same convocation and Pomerance persuaded them to sign a baseball – leading to Hoffman’s point in the anecdote: Henry Aaron has an Erdős number of 1, if you count baseballs.
There are lots of amusing little anecdotes like this – I suppose this is the only way a casual reader is likely to read the book. My favorite is the account of René Descartes encountering a ruffian while escorting a lady of the evening, quickly whipping out his rapier and disarming the thug, then commenting that he wouldn’t kill him because “…he was too ugly to die before such a beautiful lady”. I never realized Descartes was a swordsman. It would take the mind of a sadist to expand on the anecdote and speculate what might have happened if he had stepped to the front to defend an entire troop of harlots this way – but that would be putting Descartes before the whores.
It is somewhat gratifying to find that Erdős was stumped by Marilyn vos Savant’s “Monty Hall” problem; Erdős, like a substantial fraction of the world’s mathematicians, assumed that no advantage would be gained by switching doors (if you’re not familiar with the problem I suggest googling, it’s too long to explain it here). Hoffman correctly points out that this is actually a case of Bayesian probability – but unfortunately doesn’t explain why. Interestingly enough for a book on a mathematician whose main interest was number theory, when I tried to look up the details I found that the book’s index is incorrect. Apparently a 16-page photo section was added without re-indexing; thus every index entry after page 148 is incorrect. I was pleased to find that I still have a sufficient grasp of mathematics to b e able to add 16 to everything. Although I tried subtracting 16 first.
Good light reading for the slightly mathematically inclined.
Show Less
LibraryThing member billlund
A fascinating review of the world of the professional mathematician with some insights into the work he did.
LibraryThing member readaholic12
An amazing genius! I'm not a math person (at all!), but I love smart, fascinating people - Erdos lived out of a suitcase, interested only in solving math problems with the brightest minds. He was socially clueless, bizarre and brilliant. One of my favorite biographies.
LibraryThing member dvf1976
I started reading this book in 2001 and picked it up when I saw it on the shelf in our guest bedroom.
Since I took a break from reading it, I had read so many other math biographies that alot of this book seemed like a review.
I doubt I could ever achieve it, but getting a low Erdos number would be
Since I took a break from reading it, I had read so many other math biographies that alot of this book seemed like a review.
I doubt I could ever achieve it, but getting a low Erdos number would be
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pretty sweet. Show Less
LibraryThing member DonaldWMoyer_
Great. Even better than Archmides Revenge.
LibraryThing member uawelder
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Interesting history of a man, his times, and his genius. I enjoyed the history lesson, and actually learned a bit of math to top it off. If the included cases/histories such as this there would be a lot more people interested in math!
LibraryThing member reenum
I liked the early part of the book, but Hoffman's style of stringing together a bunch of different anecdotes only loosely connected became grating. I stopped at page 150.
LibraryThing member bradleybunch
Engaging biography of one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th Century. While his lifestyle (an intense combination of mathematics, amphetamines, and mooching) could probably not be adopted by anyone else, Erdos' reliance on the shared experience of intellectual activity was enlightening.
LibraryThing member pilastr
Couldn't tie his shoes or turn off a faucet, Erdos was a speed freak celibate number theorist and child prodigy against whom every subsequent mathematician is measured. Hoffman turns Erdos' life and work into a genuine page-turner where other impossible mathematicians make cameo appearances making
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for a scary hilarious window into the human capacity for and obsession with symbolic reasoning. A book for number haters, lovers, and head-scratchers alike. Show Less
LibraryThing member FKarr
math-biography of Pal Erdos; entertaining
LibraryThing member andycyca
[5/5] One of the most interesting memoirs I've read ever! You don't need deep mathematical knowledge to appreciate one of the quaintest minds of the 20th century, and most everyone can benefit from his insight, his commitment, his desire to help others.
The book is a memoir, not a biography, which
The book is a memoir, not a biography, which
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means it's full of anecdotes rather than a series of dates and facts. But as far as anecdotes go, this is one it's chock full of references to appropriate books, journals, papers and letters about Paul Erdös and his many colleagues, so the interested reader can advance in either the technical or the biographical aspects of the most prolific mathematician of the last 100 years Show Less
LibraryThing member lschiff
A fantastic read about a really fascinating person and lots of interesting math problems made accessible to non-mathematicians.
LibraryThing member caedocyon
the best math book for nonmathematicians I have ever read. a perfect mix of explanations of theorems, history, and hysterical anecdotes (which I read aloud to anyone who would listen).
Awards
Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize (Shortlist — 1999)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1998
Physical description
320 p.; 20 cm
ISBN
9781857028294
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