Paul Erds 1913 96 The Most Prolific Mathematician

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 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 2

Erdös Number Source http: //www. oakland. edu/enp/ • • 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 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 4