My Brain Is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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 own belief in the beauty of mathematics. Erdos believed that the meaning of life was to prove and conjecture. He was fascinated by numbers and became one of the century's leading numbers theorists. He worked in fields of mathematics that would prove pivotal to the development of computer science, even though he had never touched a computer. He was the most prolific mathematician who ever lived, writing or collaborating on more than 1,500 papers with over 450 different collaborators. Witty, filled with the sort of mathematical puzzles that intrigued Erdos and continue to fascinate mathematicians today, My Brain Is Open is the story of this strange genius, and a journey in his footsteps through the intriguing world of mathematics, where universal truths await discovery like hidden treasures and where brilliant proofs are poetry.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Schechter's biography of mathematical wizard Paul Erdos, who died in 1996, follows closely on the publication of one by Paul Hoffman (The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Forecasts, June 8). Curiously, both biographers were associated with Discover magazine--Schechter as a staff writer and Hoffman as editor-in-chief. Like Hoffman, Schechter adeptly portrays both the quirky Erdos and his daimon, the pure, abstract universe of numbers. Schechter's explanations of number theory are better suited than Hoffman's for readers not in technical or scientific professions. He doesn't delve into subjects like Ramsey theory in quite the detail that Hoffman does, and his digressions tend to be more relevant to Erdos's life. Hoffman, for example, goes into the story of Fermat's last theorem, which played almost no role in Erdos's career. And Schechter seems more evenhanded in his account of Erdos's controversial contribution to the solution of the Prime Number Theorem. Although Schechter didn't know Erdos personally, as Hoffman did, and although his account lacks some of the other's humanizing vignettes, readers will be engrossed by his well-crafted chronicle of the eccentric Hungarian and of the mathematical worlds he traversed for eight decades. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Perhaps the most prolific mathematician of the 20th century, Erdos lived a modest, itinerant life dedicated wholly to mathematics. This book provides a rewarding glimpse into his genius and eccentricity. (LJ 9/15/98)

Booknews

A biography of the most prolific mathematician who ever lived, the Hungarian-born Paul Erdos (1913-1996). The author covers the author's early years as a prodigy, his maturation as a mathematician, his political troubles both as a Jew in Europe before WWII and a freethinker in the US during the McCarthy era, his collaborations with countless other mathematicians, and his famous eccentricity. Includes many mathematical puzzles, but not so many that it is not accessible to non-mathematicians. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Kirkus Reviews

A pleasing biography of the mathematician (the second this season after Paul Hoffmanþs The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, p. 795) by physicist, editor, and journalist Schechter. Erdos took part in the flowering of Hungarian creative and intellectual talent that developed in the first decades of this century with von Neumann, Teller, Szilard, von Karman, and Wigner in science, and Solti, Szell, Reiner, Dorati, Bartok, and Kodaly in music. His parents, nonpracticing Jews, were both high school teachers. At four, Erdos was already in love with numbers and at home with performing rapid calculations. When asked, "What is 100 minus 250?" he thought for a moment, and then shouted "150 below zero!," thereby inventing negative numbers for himself. And it was the theory of numbers that remained the first love of his mathematical life. What makes this biography so amenable to the general reader is that many conjectures raised by number theorists are also grasped easily by nonspecialists. Schechter reconstructs Erdosþs life through interviews and memoirs of his friends, most importantly, Ronald Graham, the AT&T mathematician who became Erdos's "handler" after his adored and adoring mother's death. Indeed, therein lies a tale to titillate Freudians. It is said that Erdos had never buttered his own bread before leaving home for Cambridge. He chose not to marry and professed to be appalled by sex. Yet he loved children, whom he called "epsilons" (a math insider's joke) and was rich in friendships. Erdos left Hungary before WWII, never won a permanent teaching post, was usually short of money, and got into trouble during the McCarthy era, but was undaunted and eventually cleared. Not only didhe advance number theory and create new specialties in mathematics, but he also shifted mathþs working style from that of a solo enterprise to joint and multiple collaborations. Schechter has mined his sources well to create a captivating portrait.