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A review by peterkeep
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman
4.0
I've been really interested in math history since I was an undergrad and Paul Erdõs' career was always an interesting anecdote about work ethic and amphetamines. In the rush to cover everything from the Pythagoreans to Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, nothing gets covered in depth, so that was about as much of Erdõs as I ever knew.
Hoffman's biography on Erdõs is really well done. He weaves the story of Erdõs' life with the political history of his home country (and Europe/USA as a whole) and connects his publishing interests with some of the famous results in mathematics. It's obvious that this book is based on a shorter work (originally an article in The Atlantic) and sometimes the tangents get a little long before coming back to Uncle Paul, but it's still enjoyable.
We don't just get treated to stories of Erdõs, but we get to see and meet Graham and Hardy and Ramanujan and Euler and Euclid and a whole host of others. Among the story of Erdõs, Hoffman gives a brief summary of math history and he does as good a job as I've read at keeping it entertaining and also informative. He talks through some of the essential and formative proofs and does a nice job of shedding light on some of the importance of these results.
I think what I like most is the sentimentality of it though. Hoffman admits a few times in the book that he's no mathematician, but he's a good writer. He shows Erdõs as a sympathetic character, and does a great job of giving the reader a glimpse at the affection that so many other prominent mathematicians have for him. His is a tragic and beautiful life full of hard work and meaning and curiosity. It's hard not to feel romantic about the life of Paul Erdõs after reading about it here.
Hoffman's biography on Erdõs is really well done. He weaves the story of Erdõs' life with the political history of his home country (and Europe/USA as a whole) and connects his publishing interests with some of the famous results in mathematics. It's obvious that this book is based on a shorter work (originally an article in The Atlantic) and sometimes the tangents get a little long before coming back to Uncle Paul, but it's still enjoyable.
We don't just get treated to stories of Erdõs, but we get to see and meet Graham and Hardy and Ramanujan and Euler and Euclid and a whole host of others. Among the story of Erdõs, Hoffman gives a brief summary of math history and he does as good a job as I've read at keeping it entertaining and also informative. He talks through some of the essential and formative proofs and does a nice job of shedding light on some of the importance of these results.
I think what I like most is the sentimentality of it though. Hoffman admits a few times in the book that he's no mathematician, but he's a good writer. He shows Erdõs as a sympathetic character, and does a great job of giving the reader a glimpse at the affection that so many other prominent mathematicians have for him. His is a tragic and beautiful life full of hard work and meaning and curiosity. It's hard not to feel romantic about the life of Paul Erdõs after reading about it here.