Paul Erdös (1913-96)
The Most Prolific Mathematician Ever!
• Born: Budapest, Hungary
• Died: Warsaw, Poland
• Mathematics was his life…
– Number theory, combinatorics, discrete
mathematics…
• these form the foundation of computing
• Everything else was an encumbrance
to his mathematical pursuits
– property, money, clothes, intimacy, social
pleasantries…
• lived out of a suitcase
Fundamentals of Software
Development 1
Slide 1
A True Genius: Erdös Number
• Erdös traveled the world
–
–
–
–
living out of a suitcase
to pose and solve problems
welcomed at any university or research center
the host's responsibility to lodge, feed, do income taxes
• Erdös wrote may be over a thousand research papers
– His Erdös number is 0
– Erdös’s co-authors have Erdös number 1
– People who have written a joint paper with someone with
Erdös number 1 have Erdös number 2, and so on.
Fundamentals of Software
Development 1
Slide 2
Erdös Number
Source http://www.oakland.edu/enp/
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•
•
•
Erdös number 0 --- 1 person
Erdös number 1 --- 504 people
Erdös number 2 --- 6593 people
Erdös number 3 --- 33605 people
– (includes David Mutchler)
• David Mutchler : Sushil Jajodia :
Yechezkel Zalcstein : Erdös
• Erdös number 4 --- 83642 people
– (includes Salman Azhar)
• S. Azhar : John Reif : Ramamohan Paturi :
Endre Szemerédi : Erdös
• Erdös number 5 --- 87760 people
– (includes Steve Chenoweth)
• S. V. Chenoweth : Francis Murray :
Kenneth Miller : Harold Shapiro Erdös
Fundamentals of Software
Development 1
Slide 3
Sources
• www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/ history/Mathematicians/Erdos.html
• www.oakland.edu/~grossman/erdoshp.html
• www.oakland.edu/enp/
Fundamentals of Software
Development 1
Slide 4