Paul Erdős

Biography

Paul Erdős (Hungarian: Erdős Pál [ˈɛrdøːʃ ˈpaːl]; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. Erdős pursued and proposed problems in discrete mathematics, graph theory, number theory, mathematical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory. Much of his work centered on discrete mathematics, cracking many previously unsolved problems in the field. He championed and contributed to Ramsey theory, which studies the conditions in which order necessarily appears. Overall, his work leaned towards solving previously open problems, rather than developing or exploring new areas of mathematics.

He taught at various universities in the United States and Israel. Erdős's output was prolific; he published around 1,500 mathematical papers during his lifetime, many being collaborations with other mathematicians, making him arguably the most prolific mathematician in history. This prompted the creation of the Erdős number, the number of steps in the shortest path between a mathematician and Erdős in terms of co-authorships.

He was known both for his social practice of mathematics, working with more than 500 collaborators, and for his eccentric lifestyle. He firmly believed mathematics to be a social activity, living an itinerant lifestyle with the sole purpose of writing mathematical papers with other mathematicians. He devoted his waking hours to mathematics, even into his later years; he died at a mathematics conference in Warsaw in 1996.