My Brain Is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos

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.)