8 ms·

Paul Erdős: a life that added up to something (1996)

246 points by michaelhoffman 10y ago

pmoriarty 10y ago
It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that that obituary does not mention how critical Erdős felt his amphetamine use was to his work. A famous anecdote: "After 1971 he [Erdős] also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence, mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."
- jasonhn9999 10y ago
  Indeed, I found this NYT article a more meaningful summary of Erdős' life (with amphetamines): https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html
- projektir 10y ago
  This seems very significant.
- gnarbarian 10y ago
  As an ADD diagnosed Adderall user I can vouch for this. It's like super coffee that lasts all day. It makes you more tenacious. But tolerance builds quickly. Taking a break from it causes me to sleep 12 hours per day and eat twice as much and I get NOTHING done even when trying to supplement it with crazy amounts of coffee. Even after a week of abstinence taking my normal dose again I get 2 weeks worth of work done in a day, then I come home and clean my whole house and learn a new song on my bass.
  - whenwillitstop 10y ago
    That's what happens when you live your life on speed.
    - spdustin 10y ago
      Was that meant to sound judgmental? My prescription doesn't say "speed", and I'm fairly certain I couldn't get a meaningful therapeutic benefit from anything called "speed". It seems that you're implying that someone using Adderall should be stigmatized because they're taking medication to improve a deficiency in their brain's biochemical systems...Are you?
      - unimpressive 10y ago
        >I'm fairly certain I couldn't get a meaningful therapeutic benefit from anything called "speed". Sure you can. Desoxyn, Ritalin, and all the others work about the same, and have largely the same side effects. The only reason Methamphetamine is preferred over Amphetamine (i.e. Adderall) for recreational use is that Methamphetamine is much easier for an illicit drug kitchen to cook up from extracted ephedrine. When amphetamine was more widely available supply side as an antidepressant and prescribed by general physicians as a placebo in the same way that SSRI's commonly are today, the vast majority of illegal amphetamine products seized by police had a pharmaceutical origin. Addicts can't tell the difference between the various drugs in this class. (http://theinfluence.org/neuroscientist-meth-is-virtually-identical-to-adderall-this-is-how-i-found-out/ http://theinfluence.org/neuroscientist-meth-is-virtually-ide...) That having been said, like all things related to the drug war there's a lot of fighting and bickering and double think involved here. People are scared of these drugs because of their narcotic potential, and the frightening effects they have at medically inadvisable doses. They seem safer than some of the other commonly prescribed pseudo-narcotics like painkillers or benzodiazepines. Disclaimer: I take Adderall.
        spdustin 10y ago
        Ritalin has a different mode of action on dopamine and noradrenaline, and tends to "wear off" a lot faster for many patients. I understand there are higher rates of side effects with Ritalin as well. My own "anecdata" supports that: I became an anger-ball when I came down from Ritalin. I remember some studies that suggested it can cause schizophrenia. Desoxyn? I didn't realize it was still prescribed, given the profoundly negative effect it has when used recreationally (esp when homemade). Meth terrifies me, honestly, because it has such a wide-reaching range of effects on the body compared to amphetamine. I never got the "easier" part. My understanding is that it's not difficult to get a prescription for Adderall if one "studies" for the appointment, and it's certainly a lot cheaper. And less likely to ruin one's life.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    For me (with a normal prescription), it just never worked like that. I felt the side effects too strongly and while I did many, many things, I could only crank out unimportant widgets and the executive functions of my brain were diminished as to whether this thing I can do at an incredible [speed / pace] actually mattered. One example from college is reading chapters of a physics book and copying the vocabulary and definitions for a hundred or more words in a single session. In an unaltered state, I could maybe do half to a whole chapter and 1–2 dozen words before feeling saturated.
    - pmoriarty 10y ago
      An interesting Freudian slip. You wrote: "...whether this thing I can do at an incredible actually mattered." leaving out the word "speed" (another term for amphetamines). It reminds me of Jung's word association experiments, where his data showed that people would pause for longer periods of time when the words in the test hit on subjects that held a strong emotional charge for them.
      - tedmiston 10y ago
        Whoops; corrected. I probably ought to stop trying to write multiple sentences at a time on mobile.
        DiabloD3 10y ago
        And people argue there is no market for the old Blackberry style phones. Hah.
  - catscratch 10y ago
    For those that want to focus without as much jumpiness, Evekeo is a good choice. It's not as much of an upper since has less dextro, but still works fine.
    - therein 10y ago
      I hadn't heard of Evekeo, and was surprised to find out that it is just Amphetamine Sulfate. Is it supposed to be an immediate release preparation? I've been taking Vyvanse for a while now. Lysine-dextroamphetamine is really working great for me. Lasting almost 10 hours, not over- or under-stimulating.
      - catscratch 10y ago
        I liked Vyvanse more than Evekeo. I had much less depression, was much more motivated and able to focus during the day as well as evening, and I still could get to bed easily and sleep well-enough. But, I acted too hyper on it. Perhaps I could try to practice more self-control and continue taking it or could try taking 1/2 the dose, but after I had problems, my doc put me on Evekeo. I take one in the morning and mid-day, and I'm much more even-keeled than on Vyvanse. The downside is that it's not time-released. I have ups and downs and my brain is not working as well in the evening like Vyvanse. I also don't get sleepy as much at night when I should. But, it's much, much better and safer for me than not taking anything. I might start taking a low dose of Zenzedi in the afternoon to see if that helps problems getting to sleep. Evekeo is 50/50 dextroamphetamine/levoamphetamine; in some sources it's just called amphetamine sulfate, but the ratio is important. Zenzedi is also made by Arbor Pharmaceuticals and is pure dextroamphetamine sulfate (which is the really addictive one). Adderall/Adderall XR is 75 percent dextroamphetamine (the regular Adderall is a mixture of dextro salts in that 75 percent) and 25 percent levoamphetamine. In comparison, Vyvanse is the prodrug lisdexamfetamine that is converted to dextroamphetamine and lysine by the hydrolytic activity of red blood cells, so it's time-released. I'm told the levo form is for increased wakefulness and improved focus and dextro is for energy and speeding up executive function. I don't know if it's really that simple, but that seems to mirror my experience.
    - therein 10y ago
  - drieddust 10y ago
    How did you first found you have ADD? I suspect I have ADD but don't know how I should bring it up with my doctor?
    - gnarbarian 10y ago
      I was diagnosed as a kid in the early 90s. didn't try any medications till around 2006. Ask your doctor for a referral to see a psychiatrist or specialist in add.
    - WalterSear 10y ago
      You may want to take the Wender-Utah Adult Rating Scale: http://www1.psykiatristod.se/Global/Psykiatristod/Bilagor/ADHD/WURS_ADHD_.pdf http://www1.psykiatristod.se/Global/Psykiatristod/Bilagor/AD...
- gogopuppygogo 10y ago
  That made me think of this article from a few years ago: https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians...
- lsc 10y ago
  > It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that that obituary does not mention how critical Erdős felt his amphetamine use was to his work. A famous anecdote: I personally don't find this particularly remarkable or relevant to a discussion of the man himself. It would be relevant to a discussion of amphetamines, or of performance enhancing drugs, sure, but it's not really relevant to an obituary. I have a good friend who says that he can't think as well if he doesn't eat enough meat. If he somehow went from 'above average' to 'legendary' in some field of endeavor, sure, the story about the meat would make for an amusing personal anecdote, and would become commonly cited by omnivores when arguing with vegetarians, but is something that would probably be left out of a one-page obituary.
corndoge 10y ago
Inb4 a million comments on Erdõs' amphetamine use...discussions of his life inevitably boil down to people talking about the famous bet. Rarely his contributions.
- blackbagboys 10y ago
  Very few people are qualified to comment on his mathematical work, but lots of people have done speed.
  - laichzeit0 10y ago
    This is probably one of the best examples of "bike shedding" I've seen yet.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lgas 10y ago
  Why not talk about his contributions instead of bringing up his amphetamine use then?
thearn4 10y ago
Anyone here with an Erdős number less than 3? I have a 4, which is probably not going to change (I work in research engineering rather than research mathematics these days).
- fharper1961 10y ago
  My dad has a 2. Erdős stayed at my dad's house so that they could work together. The first morning at breakfast, Erdős asked my dad to butter his toast for him. My dad refused. That's why he doesn't have 1!
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    Poor choice in hindsight haha!
- chaoxu 10y ago
  I have 2, through Neil Calkin.
- jnordwick 10y ago
  But do you have an Erdos-Bacon number, the true test of a polymath? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_numbe...
  - chubot 10y ago
    I admit I geeked out and calculated this a couple months ago, after I was credited on my first academic paper (my career is in programming) If you count video games, I have a Bacon number of 3 because I was credited on Tiger Woods 2003-2005 with an artist named Sylvain Doreau, who is credited on Shrek. John Lithgow was in Shrek and in Footloose with Kevin Bacon. My former coworker Li Zhang has an Erdos number of 2 and we worked together on this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.00133 https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.00133 (with him doing a lot more work than me). So putting that together is an Erdos-Bacon number of 3 + 3 = 6.
  - gvurrdon 10y ago
tilt_error 10y ago
Watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wN4yLPPvRBg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wN4yLPPvRBg
sytelus 10y ago
Paul Erdos published over 1,500 papers during his lifetime. That's about one paper every 2 weeks during his career! Average professional mathematician publish about 2 papers a year. And... still he couldn't beat Euler in total number of pages published in mathematics :). Fun fact from Wikipedia: Erdős signed his name "Paul Erdos P.G.O.M." When he became 60, he added "L.D.", at 65 "A.D.", at 70 "L.D." and at 75 "C.D." P.G.O.M. = "Poor Great Old Man" L.D. = "Living Dead" A.D. = "Archaeological Discovery" L.D. = "Legally Dead" C.D. = "Counts Dead"
spdustin 10y ago
If he responded so well to amphetamine, I would simply think he had ADHD, not a drug problem. I take amphetamines every day, and I also have a hard time working without them. (Adderall is "mixed amphetamine salts", for those that may not know) Folks with ADHD respond to stimulants in way that is quite different to those with more typical attention steering skills.
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  No they don't. Adderall is speed it just floods your brain with dopamine. Everyone feels more focussed. It's all propaganda pushed by the drug companies. With all due respect, I am baffled at how people can believe this.
  - spdustin 10y ago
    Yes, they do, because the baseline availability of dopamine and noradrenaline (it affects both of them) as well as 5-HT is considerably lower in someone with ADHD than without, though 5-HT doesn't have much of a role to play in attention disorders. It also has a sympathetic serotonergic effect (edit: that is to say, that the increase in 5-HT is similar to taking an SSRI. 5-HT is serotonin.) The fact is, there are proven anatomical changes that are strongly correlated with attention disorders, and the efficacy of the dopamine/noradrenaline systems in the brain is significantly impaired by someone with such a condition. And, as someone with such a condition, I can attest to my baseline being very different from someone without an attention disorder. Further, the effect that I experience from taking Adderall is one of calmness and focus, while friends who have taken diverted pills say they feel "edgy" and focused, because its effect on me is to increase a low-baseline of the relevant neurotransmitters, and someone without a related attention disorder would have their baseline availability increased far above the therapeutic levels I experience. Self-reports from recreational users on web sites devoted to nootropics or to recreational drug use seem to agree with that assessment with considerable frequency. Maybe that helps explain why people persist in saying that someone with ADHD has a different experience with stimulants? Edit: I'll also add that my level of focus on stimulants still requires me to be somewhat interested in what I'm doing, and that doesn't seem to be the case with non-affected users, who seem to hyperfocus on whatever catches their attention first. Almost as if taking the drug gives them an attention disorder because they have too much dopamine and noradrenaline.
pcl 10y ago
I'm surprised by the author -- I never would have pegged Krauthammer as a math enthusiast. I wonder what the backstory is there.
- ramblenode 10y ago
  I only looked at the author once I had finished reading the full article and was indeed very surprised. We're often quick to ridicule people in the spotlight but most of them got there on more than just luck.
leephillips 10y ago
If this interests you, his biography My Brain is Open, is a great read: https://www.amazon.com/MY-BRAIN-OPEN-Mathematical-Journeys/dp/0684859807 https://www.amazon.com/MY-BRAIN-OPEN-Mathematical-Journeys/d...
bhaumik 10y ago
Here's the first chapter of a book on him: https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html. Interesting insight into his personality (generous, warm, eccentric, curious), obsession with mathematics, reliance on amphethamines, and wide-spread collaboration with peers (Erdös number). > To communicate with Erdös you had to learn his language. "When we met," said Martin Gardner, the mathematical essayist, "his first question was `When did you arrive?' I looked at my watch, but Graham whispered to me that it was Erdös's way of asking, `When were you born?'" Erdös often asked the same question another way: "When did the misfortune of birth overtake you?" His language had a special vocabulary--not just "the SF"[1] and "epsilon"[2] but also "bosses" (women), "slaves" (men), "captured" (married), "liberated" (divorced), "recaptured" (remarried), "noise" (music), "poison" (alcohol), "preaching" (giving a mathematics lecture), "Sam" (the United States), and "Joe" (the Soviet Union). When he said someone had "died," Erdös meant that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had "left," the person had died. [1] "The SF is the Supreme Fascist, the Number-One Guy Up There, God, who was always tormenting Erdös by hiding his glasses, stealing his Hungarian passport, or, worse yet, keeping to Himself the elegant solutions to all sorts of intriguing mathematical problems." [2] "Epsilon was Erdös's word for a small child; in mathematics that Greek letter is used to represent small quantities"
- surrey-fringe 10y ago
  I've heard this same thing and I just think he was a nerd and that was one of his gags. I don't understand why someone would write about it like it's deeper than that.
  - kevinwang 10y ago
    I never interpret this as anyone trying to say it is deep, but just that it shows insight into the kind of person he was.
japhyr 10y ago
For anyone with kids, there's a great children's book about Erdös called "The Boy Who Loved Math". I read it to my kid for the first time when he was 2 or 3, and he loved it. It got us to start talking about prime numbers in a fun way long before I would have started talking to him about them. It also made enjoying math perfectly normal; my kid is 5 now and has no idea some people don't like math. https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Loved-Math-Improbable/dp/1596433078/ https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Loved-Math-Improbable/dp/1596...
- j2kun 10y ago
  My cousin's five year old daughter loved this book. Learned what prime numbers are :)
orbitingpluto 10y ago
I took a combinatorics class that was hellish. Over half the class dropped out, including all of the graduate students after two weeks and almost all of the honour students almost immediately. I ended up looking at our library catalog to look for a book that might help with the class. I noticed our professor had a book out that was a collection of Erdos papers. I signed out the second copy. After that I was getting high 90s while the rest of the class was getting barely 50s. The marks had to be scaled, it was the teacher's intention not to fail us but to see how far he could push it. It was brutal.
drvdevd 10y ago
I often think of a (probably not entirely correct) quote I read in a book about Erdös. Something like, "the purpose of life is proof and conjecture." The progression of technology seems to me to confirm this in some ways...
kken 10y ago
Maybe something to consider when then next "I am 28yo and a senior software developer. Is $170k salary enough or should I ask for more?" thread pops up.
- zump 10y ago
  Friggin 'A. I'm 27 with 2 years experience and nowhere close to that pay in my company. FML.

246 points by michaelhoffman 10y ago

It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that that obituary does not mention how critical Erdős felt his amphetamine use was to his work. A famous anecdote: "After 1971 he [Erdős] also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence, mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."

jasonhn9999 10y ago
Indeed, I found this NYT article a more meaningful summary of Erdős' life (with amphetamines): https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html
projektir 10y ago
This seems very significant.
gnarbarian 10y ago
As an ADD diagnosed Adderall user I can vouch for this. It's like super coffee that lasts all day. It makes you more tenacious. But tolerance builds quickly. Taking a break from it causes me to sleep 12 hours per day and eat twice as much and I get NOTHING done even when trying to supplement it with crazy amounts of coffee. Even after a week of abstinence taking my normal dose again I get 2 weeks worth of work done in a day, then I come home and clean my whole house and learn a new song on my bass.
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  That's what happens when you live your life on speed.
  - spdustin 10y ago
    Was that meant to sound judgmental? My prescription doesn't say "speed", and I'm fairly certain I couldn't get a meaningful therapeutic benefit from anything called "speed". It seems that you're implying that someone using Adderall should be stigmatized because they're taking medication to improve a deficiency in their brain's biochemical systems...Are you?
    - unimpressive 10y ago
      >I'm fairly certain I couldn't get a meaningful therapeutic benefit from anything called "speed". Sure you can. Desoxyn, Ritalin, and all the others work about the same, and have largely the same side effects. The only reason Methamphetamine is preferred over Amphetamine (i.e. Adderall) for recreational use is that Methamphetamine is much easier for an illicit drug kitchen to cook up from extracted ephedrine. When amphetamine was more widely available supply side as an antidepressant and prescribed by general physicians as a placebo in the same way that SSRI's commonly are today, the vast majority of illegal amphetamine products seized by police had a pharmaceutical origin. Addicts can't tell the difference between the various drugs in this class. (http://theinfluence.org/neuroscientist-meth-is-virtually-identical-to-adderall-this-is-how-i-found-out/ http://theinfluence.org/neuroscientist-meth-is-virtually-ide...) That having been said, like all things related to the drug war there's a lot of fighting and bickering and double think involved here. People are scared of these drugs because of their narcotic potential, and the frightening effects they have at medically inadvisable doses. They seem safer than some of the other commonly prescribed pseudo-narcotics like painkillers or benzodiazepines. Disclaimer: I take Adderall.
      - spdustin 10y ago
        Ritalin has a different mode of action on dopamine and noradrenaline, and tends to "wear off" a lot faster for many patients. I understand there are higher rates of side effects with Ritalin as well. My own "anecdata" supports that: I became an anger-ball when I came down from Ritalin. I remember some studies that suggested it can cause schizophrenia. Desoxyn? I didn't realize it was still prescribed, given the profoundly negative effect it has when used recreationally (esp when homemade). Meth terrifies me, honestly, because it has such a wide-reaching range of effects on the body compared to amphetamine. I never got the "easier" part. My understanding is that it's not difficult to get a prescription for Adderall if one "studies" for the appointment, and it's certainly a lot cheaper. And less likely to ruin one's life.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  For me (with a normal prescription), it just never worked like that. I felt the side effects too strongly and while I did many, many things, I could only crank out unimportant widgets and the executive functions of my brain were diminished as to whether this thing I can do at an incredible [speed / pace] actually mattered. One example from college is reading chapters of a physics book and copying the vocabulary and definitions for a hundred or more words in a single session. In an unaltered state, I could maybe do half to a whole chapter and 1–2 dozen words before feeling saturated.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    An interesting Freudian slip. You wrote: "...whether this thing I can do at an incredible actually mattered." leaving out the word "speed" (another term for amphetamines). It reminds me of Jung's word association experiments, where his data showed that people would pause for longer periods of time when the words in the test hit on subjects that held a strong emotional charge for them.
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      Whoops; corrected. I probably ought to stop trying to write multiple sentences at a time on mobile.
      - DiabloD3 10y ago
        And people argue there is no market for the old Blackberry style phones. Hah.
- catscratch 10y ago
  For those that want to focus without as much jumpiness, Evekeo is a good choice. It's not as much of an upper since has less dextro, but still works fine.
  - therein 10y ago
    I hadn't heard of Evekeo, and was surprised to find out that it is just Amphetamine Sulfate. Is it supposed to be an immediate release preparation? I've been taking Vyvanse for a while now. Lysine-dextroamphetamine is really working great for me. Lasting almost 10 hours, not over- or under-stimulating.
    - catscratch 10y ago
      I liked Vyvanse more than Evekeo. I had much less depression, was much more motivated and able to focus during the day as well as evening, and I still could get to bed easily and sleep well-enough. But, I acted too hyper on it. Perhaps I could try to practice more self-control and continue taking it or could try taking 1/2 the dose, but after I had problems, my doc put me on Evekeo. I take one in the morning and mid-day, and I'm much more even-keeled than on Vyvanse. The downside is that it's not time-released. I have ups and downs and my brain is not working as well in the evening like Vyvanse. I also don't get sleepy as much at night when I should. But, it's much, much better and safer for me than not taking anything. I might start taking a low dose of Zenzedi in the afternoon to see if that helps problems getting to sleep. Evekeo is 50/50 dextroamphetamine/levoamphetamine; in some sources it's just called amphetamine sulfate, but the ratio is important. Zenzedi is also made by Arbor Pharmaceuticals and is pure dextroamphetamine sulfate (which is the really addictive one). Adderall/Adderall XR is 75 percent dextroamphetamine (the regular Adderall is a mixture of dextro salts in that 75 percent) and 25 percent levoamphetamine. In comparison, Vyvanse is the prodrug lisdexamfetamine that is converted to dextroamphetamine and lysine by the hydrolytic activity of red blood cells, so it's time-released. I'm told the levo form is for increased wakefulness and improved focus and dextro is for energy and speeding up executive function. I don't know if it's really that simple, but that seems to mirror my experience.
  - therein 10y ago
- drieddust 10y ago
  How did you first found you have ADD? I suspect I have ADD but don't know how I should bring it up with my doctor?
  - gnarbarian 10y ago
    I was diagnosed as a kid in the early 90s. didn't try any medications till around 2006. Ask your doctor for a referral to see a psychiatrist or specialist in add.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    You may want to take the Wender-Utah Adult Rating Scale: http://www1.psykiatristod.se/Global/Psykiatristod/Bilagor/ADHD/WURS_ADHD_.pdf http://www1.psykiatristod.se/Global/Psykiatristod/Bilagor/AD...
gogopuppygogo 10y ago
That made me think of this article from a few years ago: https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians...
lsc 10y ago
> It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that that obituary does not mention how critical Erdős felt his amphetamine use was to his work. A famous anecdote: I personally don't find this particularly remarkable or relevant to a discussion of the man himself. It would be relevant to a discussion of amphetamines, or of performance enhancing drugs, sure, but it's not really relevant to an obituary. I have a good friend who says that he can't think as well if he doesn't eat enough meat. If he somehow went from 'above average' to 'legendary' in some field of endeavor, sure, the story about the meat would make for an amusing personal anecdote, and would become commonly cited by omnivores when arguing with vegetarians, but is something that would probably be left out of a one-page obituary.

corndoge 10y ago

Inb4 a million comments on Erdõs' amphetamine use...discussions of his life inevitably boil down to people talking about the famous bet. Rarely his contributions.

blackbagboys 10y ago
Very few people are qualified to comment on his mathematical work, but lots of people have done speed.
- laichzeit0 10y ago
  This is probably one of the best examples of "bike shedding" I've seen yet.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lgas 10y ago
Why not talk about his contributions instead of bringing up his amphetamine use then?

thearn4 10y ago

Anyone here with an Erdős number less than 3? I have a 4, which is probably not going to change (I work in research engineering rather than research mathematics these days).

fharper1961 10y ago
My dad has a 2. Erdős stayed at my dad's house so that they could work together. The first morning at breakfast, Erdős asked my dad to butter his toast for him. My dad refused. That's why he doesn't have 1!
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  Poor choice in hindsight haha!
chaoxu 10y ago
I have 2, through Neil Calkin.
jnordwick 10y ago
But do you have an Erdos-Bacon number, the true test of a polymath? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_numbe...
- chubot 10y ago
  I admit I geeked out and calculated this a couple months ago, after I was credited on my first academic paper (my career is in programming) If you count video games, I have a Bacon number of 3 because I was credited on Tiger Woods 2003-2005 with an artist named Sylvain Doreau, who is credited on Shrek. John Lithgow was in Shrek and in Footloose with Kevin Bacon. My former coworker Li Zhang has an Erdos number of 2 and we worked together on this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.00133 https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.00133 (with him doing a lot more work than me). So putting that together is an Erdos-Bacon number of 3 + 3 = 6.
- gvurrdon 10y ago

tilt_error 10y ago

Watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wN4yLPPvRBg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wN4yLPPvRBg

sytelus 10y ago

Paul Erdos published over 1,500 papers during his lifetime. That's about one paper every 2 weeks during his career! Average professional mathematician publish about 2 papers a year. And... still he couldn't beat Euler in total number of pages published in mathematics :). Fun fact from Wikipedia: Erdős signed his name "Paul Erdos P.G.O.M." When he became 60, he added "L.D.", at 65 "A.D.", at 70 "L.D." and at 75 "C.D." P.G.O.M. = "Poor Great Old Man" L.D. = "Living Dead" A.D. = "Archaeological Discovery" L.D. = "Legally Dead" C.D. = "Counts Dead"

spdustin 10y ago

If he responded so well to amphetamine, I would simply think he had ADHD, not a drug problem. I take amphetamines every day, and I also have a hard time working without them. (Adderall is "mixed amphetamine salts", for those that may not know) Folks with ADHD respond to stimulants in way that is quite different to those with more typical attention steering skills.

whenwillitstop 10y ago
No they don't. Adderall is speed it just floods your brain with dopamine. Everyone feels more focussed. It's all propaganda pushed by the drug companies. With all due respect, I am baffled at how people can believe this.
- spdustin 10y ago
  Yes, they do, because the baseline availability of dopamine and noradrenaline (it affects both of them) as well as 5-HT is considerably lower in someone with ADHD than without, though 5-HT doesn't have much of a role to play in attention disorders. It also has a sympathetic serotonergic effect (edit: that is to say, that the increase in 5-HT is similar to taking an SSRI. 5-HT is serotonin.) The fact is, there are proven anatomical changes that are strongly correlated with attention disorders, and the efficacy of the dopamine/noradrenaline systems in the brain is significantly impaired by someone with such a condition. And, as someone with such a condition, I can attest to my baseline being very different from someone without an attention disorder. Further, the effect that I experience from taking Adderall is one of calmness and focus, while friends who have taken diverted pills say they feel "edgy" and focused, because its effect on me is to increase a low-baseline of the relevant neurotransmitters, and someone without a related attention disorder would have their baseline availability increased far above the therapeutic levels I experience. Self-reports from recreational users on web sites devoted to nootropics or to recreational drug use seem to agree with that assessment with considerable frequency. Maybe that helps explain why people persist in saying that someone with ADHD has a different experience with stimulants? Edit: I'll also add that my level of focus on stimulants still requires me to be somewhat interested in what I'm doing, and that doesn't seem to be the case with non-affected users, who seem to hyperfocus on whatever catches their attention first. Almost as if taking the drug gives them an attention disorder because they have too much dopamine and noradrenaline.

pcl 10y ago

I'm surprised by the author -- I never would have pegged Krauthammer as a math enthusiast. I wonder what the backstory is there.

ramblenode 10y ago
I only looked at the author once I had finished reading the full article and was indeed very surprised. We're often quick to ridicule people in the spotlight but most of them got there on more than just luck.

leephillips 10y ago

If this interests you, his biography My Brain is Open, is a great read: https://www.amazon.com/MY-BRAIN-OPEN-Mathematical-Journeys/dp/0684859807 https://www.amazon.com/MY-BRAIN-OPEN-Mathematical-Journeys/d...

bhaumik 10y ago

Here's the first chapter of a book on him: https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-man.html. Interesting insight into his personality (generous, warm, eccentric, curious), obsession with mathematics, reliance on amphethamines, and wide-spread collaboration with peers (Erdös number). > To communicate with Erdös you had to learn his language. "When we met," said Martin Gardner, the mathematical essayist, "his first question was `When did you arrive?' I looked at my watch, but Graham whispered to me that it was Erdös's way of asking, `When were you born?'" Erdös often asked the same question another way: "When did the misfortune of birth overtake you?" His language had a special vocabulary--not just "the SF"[1] and "epsilon"[2] but also "bosses" (women), "slaves" (men), "captured" (married), "liberated" (divorced), "recaptured" (remarried), "noise" (music), "poison" (alcohol), "preaching" (giving a mathematics lecture), "Sam" (the United States), and "Joe" (the Soviet Union). When he said someone had "died," Erdös meant that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had "left," the person had died. [1] "The SF is the Supreme Fascist, the Number-One Guy Up There, God, who was always tormenting Erdös by hiding his glasses, stealing his Hungarian passport, or, worse yet, keeping to Himself the elegant solutions to all sorts of intriguing mathematical problems." [2] "Epsilon was Erdös's word for a small child; in mathematics that Greek letter is used to represent small quantities"

surrey-fringe 10y ago
I've heard this same thing and I just think he was a nerd and that was one of his gags. I don't understand why someone would write about it like it's deeper than that.
- kevinwang 10y ago
  I never interpret this as anyone trying to say it is deep, but just that it shows insight into the kind of person he was.

japhyr 10y ago

For anyone with kids, there's a great children's book about Erdös called "The Boy Who Loved Math". I read it to my kid for the first time when he was 2 or 3, and he loved it. It got us to start talking about prime numbers in a fun way long before I would have started talking to him about them. It also made enjoying math perfectly normal; my kid is 5 now and has no idea some people don't like math. https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Loved-Math-Improbable/dp/1596433078/ https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Loved-Math-Improbable/dp/1596...

j2kun 10y ago
My cousin's five year old daughter loved this book. Learned what prime numbers are :)

orbitingpluto 10y ago

I took a combinatorics class that was hellish. Over half the class dropped out, including all of the graduate students after two weeks and almost all of the honour students almost immediately. I ended up looking at our library catalog to look for a book that might help with the class. I noticed our professor had a book out that was a collection of Erdos papers. I signed out the second copy. After that I was getting high 90s while the rest of the class was getting barely 50s. The marks had to be scaled, it was the teacher's intention not to fail us but to see how far he could push it. It was brutal.

drvdevd 10y ago

I often think of a (probably not entirely correct) quote I read in a book about Erdös. Something like, "the purpose of life is proof and conjecture." The progression of technology seems to me to confirm this in some ways...

kken 10y ago

Maybe something to consider when then next "I am 28yo and a senior software developer. Is $170k salary enough or should I ask for more?" thread pops up.

zump 10y ago
Friggin 'A. I'm 27 with 2 years experience and nowhere close to that pay in my company. FML.