Pál Erdős (1913 - 1996)

Born 26 Mar 1913 in Budapest, Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, Hungary

Died 20 Sep 1996 at age 83 in Warsaw, Poland

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Biography

Pál Erdős is Notable.

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers^[1]

Paul Erdős, (born March 26, 1913^[2], Budapest, Hungary—died September 20, 1996, Warsaw, Poland)^[3][4], Hungarian “freelance” mathematician (known for his work in number theory and combinatorics) and legendary eccentric who was arguably the most prolific mathematician of the 20th century, in terms of both the number of problems he solved and the number of problems he convinced others to tackle.^[5]He published about 1525 mathematical papers in his lifetime, mostly with collaborators, of which there were 511. Because of his prolific output, friends created the Erdős number as a tribute. An Erdős number describes a person's degree of separation from Erdős himself, based on their collaboration with him, or with another who has their own Erdős number. Erdős alone was assigned the Erdős number of 0 (for being himself), while his immediate collaborators could claim an Erdős number of 1, their collaborators have Erdős number at most 2, and so on. Approximately 200,000 mathematicians have an assigned Erdős number. Jerry Grossman has written that it could be argued that Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron can be considered to have an Erdős number of 1 because they both autographed the same baseball (for Carl Pomerance) when Emory University awarded them honorary degrees on the same day.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Loved_Only_Numbers
2. ↑ "Hungary Civil Registration, 1895-1980," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-894J-1YVB?cc=1452460&wc=92QZ-N3N%3A40678301%2C51865101%2C43892401 : 16 June 2014), Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kis-Kun > Budapest (VI. Kerület) > Births (Születtek) 1912-1913 > image 491 of 539; Archiv der Stadt Budapest (Archive of the City), Hungary.
3. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/110929426/p%C3%A1l-erd%C5%91s
4. ↑ "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVRY-9MT6 : accessed 16 July 2021), Paul Erdos, Dubuque, Iowa, United States, 24 Sep 1996; from "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - Today)," database, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com : 2014); citing Telegraph Herald, born-digital text.
5. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Erdos
6. ↑ Wikipedia: Paul Erdős

• Wikipedia: Paul Erdős
• Wikidata: Item Q173746, en:Wikipedia