The internet is a wonderful thing. So is curiosity. Put two and three together and sometimes you get more than six.
I stumbled upon a lot of interesting people and facts simply reading about a subject online. Only to later discover that I could actually land a book about that subject at the local library.
So it was I discovered a Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos (pronounced Air Dash). Someone who learned about negative numbers at age three, did not ever cook in his lifetime or learn how to tie his shoes till age 11, he was an odd specimen that graced this earth.
I recently read a biography about Erdos titled, 'The man who loved only numbers' by Paul Hoffman. Born to a set of Jewish math teachers, Paul lived the life of a monk in the pursuit of mathematical truth.
After reading the book I am still trying to decipher what I had just read and how this amazing mind was able to see what others could not see. Similar mind bending ideas came to lot more people in the 20th century like the Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Based on Ramanujan's own admission he saw numbers through intuition and insights when god spoke to him. Erdos on the other hand viewed god as a SF or supreme fascist. Reading the book suggests Erdos as leaning toward atheism although commenting that he was not smart enough to know if God existed.
The book makes reference to the fact that Erdos acknowledged how Indian math had transformed western thinking including the work of Ramanujan. He is said to have his speaking fees in India donated to Ramanujan's widow.
The back cover synopsis by British neurologist Oliver Sacks sums Erdos's life as that of an odd genius who had a sense of humor.
Some interesting quotes and a few limericks from the book that I want to capture (more for my own lookback than anything else)...
Every even number greater than 2 cab be expressed as a sum of two primes.
2 = 1+1
4 = 2 +2
6 = 3 + 3
8 = 3 + 5
and so on
100 = 11 + 89
A math major said it and I will say it again
there is always a prime between n and 2n
I remember taking a cog rail in the hills of Buda only to later discover that this math prodigy took hikes in the same woods half a century or more ago... chilling.
I stumbled upon a lot of interesting people and facts simply reading about a subject online. Only to later discover that I could actually land a book about that subject at the local library.
So it was I discovered a Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos (pronounced Air Dash). Someone who learned about negative numbers at age three, did not ever cook in his lifetime or learn how to tie his shoes till age 11, he was an odd specimen that graced this earth.
I recently read a biography about Erdos titled, 'The man who loved only numbers' by Paul Hoffman. Born to a set of Jewish math teachers, Paul lived the life of a monk in the pursuit of mathematical truth.
After reading the book I am still trying to decipher what I had just read and how this amazing mind was able to see what others could not see. Similar mind bending ideas came to lot more people in the 20th century like the Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Based on Ramanujan's own admission he saw numbers through intuition and insights when god spoke to him. Erdos on the other hand viewed god as a SF or supreme fascist. Reading the book suggests Erdos as leaning toward atheism although commenting that he was not smart enough to know if God existed.
The book makes reference to the fact that Erdos acknowledged how Indian math had transformed western thinking including the work of Ramanujan. He is said to have his speaking fees in India donated to Ramanujan's widow.
The back cover synopsis by British neurologist Oliver Sacks sums Erdos's life as that of an odd genius who had a sense of humor.
Some interesting quotes and a few limericks from the book that I want to capture (more for my own lookback than anything else)...
- If anything is certain it is mathematics
- If I am alive tomorrow we will solve this problem
- A negative personality walks into a party and guests asked 'who left'?
There was a young man who said 'God
it has always struck me as odd
that the sycamore tree
simply ceases to be
when there's no one about in the quad
'Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad;
And that's why the tree
will continue to be,
Since observed by,
Yours faithfully, God'.
Every even number greater than 2 cab be expressed as a sum of two primes.
2 = 1+1
4 = 2 +2
6 = 3 + 3
8 = 3 + 5
and so on
100 = 11 + 89
A math major said it and I will say it again
there is always a prime between n and 2n
I remember taking a cog rail in the hills of Buda only to later discover that this math prodigy took hikes in the same woods half a century or more ago... chilling.
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