CH 18: A Real Mathematical Hero
Paul Erdos was a Hungarian mathematician who lived during the twentieth century. He is unique due to the fact that he never maintained a permanent residence, never married, never had kids, shunned worldly possessions and basically lived an entirely nomadic existence. He lived to be 83 years old and was a mathematician from a very early age. While his decision to live such a life probably has earned him a bit of a reputation as an eccentric, it also afforded him the opportunity to spend his long life dedicated entirely to mathematics and in the process become perhaps the most prolific mathematician ever in history as of this writing.
In fact, he has collaborated with so many different mathematicians that the Erdos number was born. This is a number that refers to how many degrees of separation any given mathematician is from working on a math paper with Erdos. So if you are Erdos you maintain the only zero and if you worked with Erdos, you have an Erdos number one and if you worked with someone who worked with Erdos you have an Erdos number of two. This procedure continues, in just the same way that the classic “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” game works. For more information, see Oracleofbacon.org.
