What's your Erdos Number?

[Kimstu]

Erdos wasn’t the world’s greatest mathematician, but he was a mathematical problem-solver and collaborator extraordinaire. Check out the recent biography of Erdos by Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers:

A key factor behind Erdös’s many research collaborations was his highly unusual lifestyle. Though Hungarian by birth, he left his home country in 1934 to avoid political persecution, and spent the rest of his life with no fixed home, wandering the world, for the most part relying on other mathematicians to house and support him. He carried around all his worldly possessions in a shabby suitcase and a plastic bag. Typically, he would show up on the doorstep of a fellow mathematician – often unannounced – and declare, “My brain is open,” his own peculiar way of inviting the colleague to spend the next few days engaged in a feverish orgy of mathematical investigation. […]

It was hard not to like Erdös. There was a childlike innocence to him, coupled with a wry wit that indicated someone not entirely oblivious to the rest of the world. He was a man whose entire life revolved around mathematics. Short and frail looking, almost cadaverous, he generally dressed in a well-worn gray striped suit, with open sandals, and spoke English with a strong, melodic Hungarian accent. He was able to carry on several mathematical conversations at the same time. […]

The book does have some weaknesses, mostly I think because Hoffman is not a mathematician. For instance, one thing the biography does not bring out, but which I think is important, is that Erdös was not a “great mathematician” in the sense of say, Andrew Wiles, who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem. Erdös’s most significant single result was in fact a new proof of a result that was already known – the Prime Number Theorem. He did not spend years working on a single, major problem, as Wiles did, nor did he appear to know much mathematics. Erdös’s greatest strength was as a “problem solver” who had a rare ability to ask questions that had just the right degree of difficulty. By and large, he preferred those areas of mathematics where all that is required is a sharp mind; he avoided those areas where it is necessary to absorb vast amounts of information in order to make any progress. It was very much an innocent, childlike approach to mathematics. I think this point should have been made – and explained – because Erdös did have a greatness, and it was a unique greatness. (It also explains why Erdös was able to collaborate with so many others. On occasion, a single conversation resulted in a joint paper.)

(Holy crap, my own Erdos number is only 5! Oh wait, that’s if you count co-editorship of an edited volume as co-authorship: I’m not sure that’s legit.)

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@Wendell Wagner

I’ve never heard that before. Every description of how the Erdos number works I’ve heard up to now says that you can connect via any co-authored paper, regardless of the number of co-authors. I just checked the only two books I own that might speak to this issue, the two biographies of Erdos (yes, there are two biographies of Erdos), and they both say that any co-authored paper is O.K., regardless of the number of co-authors.

You seem to be right, according to the Erdos Number Project. And I thought this is where I had heard that it counted only papers with two authors… I guess I was wrong.

By the way, thanks to beergeek279 for telling me about Erdos and Aaron’s baseball. Oh, and Kimstu, the Erdos Number Project specifically says that they don’t count co-editorships, so I guess you’re out of luck.

[Cervaise]

@Kimstu

Check out the recent biography of Erdos by Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers

That I, a layman, read this book the year it came out in hardback, and have had it on my shelf ever since, doesn’t give me some sort of honorary number, does it?

[mojave66]

WOO HOO!!! I just found out I have an Erdos number of 4 even while I’m flunking real analysis! I am thoroughly unworthy of this number! I’ve gotta tell my math prof this.

How I got it is that the biostatistician on my project published with a UC Berkeley biostatistician with an Erdos number of 2. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with math, unless you count poking at databases all day as being mathematical.

[Wendell_Wagner]

The other biography of Erdos is My Brain Is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos by Bruce Schechter.

[iamthewalrus_3]

My Erdos number is 4. Or, at least, it will be once my first paper is published. Scheduled for Feb of '06 right now.

And that requires that you use the looser definition that counts a multi-author paper.

Still. That’s pretty freakin’ cool.