
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (1998) - ttsiodras
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html
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japhyr
There's a children's book called The Boy Who Loved Math: The improbable life
of Paul Erdös [0]. I ordered a copy when looking for some books to get my son
interested in math beyond counting and simple arithmetic.

My son is 3 1/2, and he loves this book. He loves that there was a kid who
loved numbers so much he spent his whole life studying them. He loves that he
gets to see a boy grow into an adult, who grows into an old man. If you want
to share your love of math with a kid, Erdös' story is a great one to share.
It's also a great conversation starter about how much or how little to focus
on any one thing. I love knowing Erdös' story, but I'm not sure I'd like to be
him.

[0] - [http://www.amazon.com/The-Boy-Who-Loved-
Math/dp/1596433078/r...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Boy-Who-Loved-
Math/dp/1596433078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=boy++who+loved+numbers)

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hueving
Does it cover the cocaine usage?

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japhyr
The only substance it mentions is coffee.

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Gravityloss
Anybody notice how beautiful and natural to use the page is? Turns out it's
very basic html.

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arasmussen
I don't have a huge monitor (22 inches) but I found it difficult to read
because the lines were so wide. They should set a fixed width for the content
and then I'd agree with you.

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lmm
They shouldn't. If you want to make a wide page narrower you can always resize
your browser. If I want to make a narrow page wider, there's no way for me to
do that.

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iopq
If you want to make a narrow page wider, you can open the Inspector and change
the width.

The argument is the same, and they're both invalid. It takes way too much
effort. I'm not resizing a window I use for everything just so I can
fullscreen it when I switch to another tab and resize it again when I return.

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john_b
> _" If you want to make a narrow page wider, you can open the Inspector and
> change the width."_

The difference is that one is accessible to the average user. Outside of
Developerland, most people don't even realize that the page they are viewing
has a source which can be inspected or changed.

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BinRoo
My High School mathematics teacher introduced me to this book 6-7 years ago.
Erdös was a hacker in the Mathematician's world. His throughput for
establishing hundreds of conjectures and proofs reminds me of collegiate
Hackathons in our programming community. This book might make you fall in love
with Mathematics, or at least provide an undeniable appreciation for getting
shit done.

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miles
There is a documentary about his life as well:

 _N Is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős_

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iflQseSSfA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iflQseSSfA)

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temuze
Oh man, I really loved this biography in the 9th grade. It was the first time
I was exposed to the concept of mathematics being beautiful. I can't recommend
this book enough. Also, I loved Paul Hoffman's biography of the Brazilian
aviator Alberto Santos Dumont as well.

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leephillips
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 amphetamines made an impression. His friends at times
tried to discourage him, but he claimed that without them, he could create no
mathematics. Given his colossal output, this means that a significant part of
the landscape of modern mathematics owes it existence to this drug.

How he learned the drug would help him, and how he got his hands on it, and
when and how his use of it started, are questions I'm very curious about, but
the book doesn't go there.

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Curmudgel
>The information about amphetamines made an impression. His friends at times
tried to discourage him, but he claimed that without them, he could create no
mathematics. Given his colossal output, this means that a significant part of
the landscape of modern mathematics owes it existence to this drug.

Erdős was a heavy user of many other stimulants (like coffee), but only
started to use antidepressants and then amphetamines in 1971 when he was 58
after his mother died. He was already established as a first rate
mathematician (he should have won the Fields Medal), and using amphetamines to
work 19 hours a day was his way of coping with the death of his mother.

See [http://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-
rev2....](http://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2.pdf) for
more.

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grannyg00se
I find it fascinating that, according to this story, he could not be
productive without amphetamines.

"I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. "

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ZoF
Keep in mind that he didn't start amphetamine use until his late 50's.

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lkozma
If someone is interested, here are two further nice articles about the man,
written by a close friend and collaborator:

[http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/files/tr_authentic/TR-2001-11.ps](http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/files/tr_authentic/TR-2001-11.ps)

[http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/files/tr_authentic/TR-2001-03.ps](http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/files/tr_authentic/TR-2001-03.ps)

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teddyh
The name is most correctly spelled “Paul Erdős”, not “Paul Erdös”.

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robinhouston
_More_ correctly, certainly; most correctly might be “Erdős Pál”?

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teddyh
I stand most corrected.

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cschmidt
I loved this book, and can highly recommend it. Take a look at the bottom
right picture on his Wikipedia page [1], where he is talking about math to a
10 year old Terence Tao, who is now one of the great minds of his generation.
I think that is Erdos in short. He had an influence on so many people across
the world.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s)

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xg
I love that this story is trending on Hacker News. The author, Paul Hoffman,
is a close friend.

It's nice when good work gets rediscovered here.

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steego
Thank your friend for writing a wonderful biography about a beautiful soul.
That book really opened up the world for me by introducing me to a lot of the
history and ideas. I'd dropped out of school many years ago and never learned
Calculus. After that book, I was inspired to take evening classes and finally
learn calculus. As it turned out, I needed to take a few refresher classes
before I got to calculus, but I did and I finished up to calc 3. I've been
meaning to go back and do some linear algebra and differential equations...
Hopefully, I will go back soon.

Tell your friend he's doing the SF's work. Then again, maybe he's doing the
devil's work if the SF is bent on keeping all the good theorems to himself.

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theflubba
He seemed to also love amphetamines.

