A review by balhau
Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos & the Search for Mathematical by Paul Hoffman

4.0

This is a lovely book. It is a journey through the life and work of Paul Erdös. For those, like me, that didn't know Erdös as a human being this comes as a mixed surprise. Erdös was an exceptional human being, very unique in his behaviour and with strong moral values and kind to humanity with particularly to epsilons (childrens in erdös words). Erdös was one of the most prolific mathematicians ever and the amount of work done by him is completely astonishing. He is also recognized as one of the counter examples to the theory that mathematical brains go into retirement at age of 35 more or less, by publishing until the very end of his life. This book is a lovely one because not only draws a very colorful of Erdös life but it also interleaves his life and work with those of Cantor, Einstein, Hilbert, Godel, Bertrand Russel and many more. His life and work is also a leverage to introduce some main mathematical results and ideas in a very simple and straightforward way. The whole book is very well written and it was a very lovely experience to go through the reading.