Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos & the Search for Mathematical

Erdos, who died in September 1996 at the age of 83, was a true Good Will Hunting, an eccentric mathematical genius who bestowed on his devoted colleagues quirky, inspirational insights into life, eternity and numerical puzzles. When just a youth, Erdos began proving theorems that had stumped generations of mathematicians. His publications eventually numbered over a thousand and spawned countless other small breakthroughs. For his second 40 years, Erdos meandered from conference to conference, all his worldly belongings in a suitcase or two, staying with colleagues who put up with his inability to cope with everyday life. His maddening idiosyncrasies, like dropping handfuls of cereal all over the kitchen in a misguided attempt to feed the dog (""four-legged fascists"") were more than balanced by his kindness to friends in any kind of need and to their children (""epsilons""). Encyclopaedia Britannica publisher and former Discover magazine editor Hoffman here expands his National Magazine Award-winning profile of Erdos (from the Atlantic Monthly), penning a fond portrayal of this Hungarian genius. He skillfully manages an intricate, non-chronological account of Erdos's career, spending as much time explaining, with impressive clarity, the complex realms of numbers and number theory that Erdos made his home as he does providing biographical details. Despite the jumps across the years and digressions into mathematical excursus, Hoffman never loses the golden thread of Erdos's genius and humanity, deftly leading the reader through a vital computational life. Eight pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (July)