4 ms·

Pretty sure Erdős himself would be the first one to tell you that he was a minor footnote compared to someone like Euler (or Gauss, or Newton, etc). But it’s so

Pretty sure Erdős himself would be the first one to tell you that he was a minor footnote compared to someone like Euler (or Gauss, or Newton, etc). But it’s sort of a silly comparison, like asking who was the greater composer, John Lennon or Mozart? Vastly different times and milieus make the question somewhat pointless.

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
I care little for Lennon and a lot for Mozart so I know how I'd vote there. I was asking about quality vs. quantity. I'm sure both had a spectrum of results as far as importance. My sense as a regular math user (but not a mathematician) was that Euler had a broader impact. I use e, i, and pi almost every day. But that's conditioned by not knowing Erdős's work to a comparable extent.
- defrost 3y ago
  Scategorically there's a clear no contest winner here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  By the time Erdos started working, all those low hanging fruit was picked. Euler also didn't discover e. g. pi, it's just that his notation was universally adopted. I'm not trying to diminish his contributions, he's still possibly GOAT, just that this method of comparison is necessarily misleading.
  - lr1970 3y ago
    Euler equation e^(ix) = cos(x) + i*sin(x) alone is worth more than Erdos did in his entire life. Euler laid foundations for complex numbers analysis. His other contributions have been already covered in this thread.
- atlintots 3y ago
  Your comment should answer your question -- there's really no fair comparison between them considering how far apart their eras were. It was much "easier" making new discoveries back then (there were simply fewer mathematicians, and maths itself was much younger). Making any significant contribution in modern times is so much more difficult. It's said within algebraic geometry most mathematicians will publish perhaps a handful of papers in their lifetime -- it takes too long to even get up to speed with the subject before you are able to start contributing.

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago

I care little for Lennon and a lot for Mozart so I know how I'd vote there. I was asking about quality vs. quantity. I'm sure both had a spectrum of results as far as importance. My sense as a regular math user (but not a mathematician) was that Euler had a broader impact. I use e, i, and pi almost every day. But that's conditioned by not knowing Erdős's work to a comparable extent.

defrost 3y ago
Scategorically there's a clear no contest winner here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk
The_Colonel 3y ago
By the time Erdos started working, all those low hanging fruit was picked. Euler also didn't discover e. g. pi, it's just that his notation was universally adopted. I'm not trying to diminish his contributions, he's still possibly GOAT, just that this method of comparison is necessarily misleading.
- lr1970 3y ago
  Euler equation e^(ix) = cos(x) + i*sin(x) alone is worth more than Erdos did in his entire life. Euler laid foundations for complex numbers analysis. His other contributions have been already covered in this thread.
atlintots 3y ago
Your comment should answer your question -- there's really no fair comparison between them considering how far apart their eras were. It was much "easier" making new discoveries back then (there were simply fewer mathematicians, and maths itself was much younger). Making any significant contribution in modern times is so much more difficult. It's said within algebraic geometry most mathematicians will publish perhaps a handful of papers in their lifetime -- it takes too long to even get up to speed with the subject before you are able to start contributing.