My Brain is Open
The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdõs
by Bruce Schechter · first published 1998
100% recommend
For over half a century, at almost any hour of the day, mathematicians the world over might answer a knock at the front door to find a short, frail man wearing thick eyeglasses and a rumpled suit, carrying a suitcase containing all his belongings in one hand and a bag full of papers in the other, who would announce, "My brain is open!" The visitor was Paul Erdos, one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century and certainly the most eccentric. Having no home or job, and incapable of the most ordinary household tasks, Erdos was sustained by the generosity of colleagues and by his
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A couple of years after this article a book about Erdős appeared called My Brain is Open. If you enjoyed this article I highly recommend the book about this fascinating man and his unique life. It even has some good explanations of some of the problems he worked on. The information about…
on “The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (1998)” ↗Here is my full bookshelf: http://www.kirubakaran.com/books-read.html Books Read in 2016: 1. The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge - Poundstone, William 2. My Brain is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos - Schechter, Bruce 3. One Summer: America, 1927 - Bryson, Bill 4. The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1) - Liu, Cixin 5. The Dip: A Little…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗If this interests you, his biography My Brain is Open, is a great read: https://www.amazon.com/MY-BRAIN-OPEN-Mathematical-Journeys/d...
on “Paul Erdős: a life that added up to something (1996)” ↗