4 ms·

The article in Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history", that doesn't mean he was the most prolific mathema

by nico 16y ago

The article in Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history", that doesn't mean he was the most prolific mathematician of all time. What about Euler[1] for example? (I don't think he used drugs though) Anyway, I agree with your comment in the sense that intelligence, talent or success are not mutually exclusive with drugs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

bkudria 16y ago
But imagine if he had!
btilly 16y ago
How do you measure? Erdos published more papers with more collaborators than Euler. Euler published more pages of material and founded more areas of research than Erdos. (Yes, Euler has the benefit of having had people think about his stuff longer, and attribute more to inspiration from him. But Erdos won't ever come close to catching up.) I think that Arthur Cayley is in third place on both measures.
- joejohnson 16y ago
  As long as we are trying to determine causes of people's success, we should consider their location in time. Imagine if Erdos had been around before Euler? Who's to say that he wouldn't have discovered some or more of what Euler discovered. The earlier discoveries were the easier one, the low-hanging fruit. If I went back in time it would be easier for me to make some ground breaking discovery, like pythagoras theorem. But today, I need to be smarter and more clever than centuries of mathematicians to add something new to our collective knowledge of the universe. All of the easy problems are solved :(
  - angus77 16y ago
    Of course it would be easy to "discover" the Pythagorean theorem if you went back in time---you already know it. Now, go back in time and <em>take away all your knowledge</em> (and the knowledge that there was a theorom to be discovered in the first place) and see how easy it would be for you to discover that theorom.
shazow 16y ago
I don't think anyone would argue that drugs is the answer for everybody. Perhaps some people are blessed with the creativity and vision to see a blank canvas as full of ideas. Other people have to resort to aids to get to that point. Yet otherer people probably couldn't get there even with aids.

by nico 16y ago

bkudria 16y ago

But imagine if he had!

btilly 16y ago

How do you measure? Erdos published more papers with more collaborators than Euler. Euler published more pages of material and founded more areas of research than Erdos. (Yes, Euler has the benefit of having had people think about his stuff longer, and attribute more to inspiration from him. But Erdos won't ever come close to catching up.) I think that Arthur Cayley is in third place on both measures.

joejohnson 16y ago
As long as we are trying to determine causes of people's success, we should consider their location in time. Imagine if Erdos had been around before Euler? Who's to say that he wouldn't have discovered some or more of what Euler discovered. The earlier discoveries were the easier one, the low-hanging fruit. If I went back in time it would be easier for me to make some ground breaking discovery, like pythagoras theorem. But today, I need to be smarter and more clever than centuries of mathematicians to add something new to our collective knowledge of the universe. All of the easy problems are solved :(
- angus77 16y ago
  Of course it would be easy to "discover" the Pythagorean theorem if you went back in time---you already know it. Now, go back in time and <em>take away all your knowledge</em> (and the knowledge that there was a theorom to be discovered in the first place) and see how easy it would be for you to discover that theorom.

shazow 16y ago

I don't think anyone would argue that drugs is the answer for everybody. Perhaps some people are blessed with the creativity and vision to see a blank canvas as full of ideas. Other people have to resort to aids to get to that point. Yet otherer people probably couldn't get there even with aids.