Voting Station

Paul Erdos

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Mathematician

The Resume

    (March 26, 1913-September 20, 1996)
    Contributed to number theory, set theory, probability, combinatorics and graph theory
    Wrote over 1,500 papers with over 500 co-authors
    Honored with the Erdos number (anyone who wrote a paper with Erdos has an Erdos number of 1; anyone who wrote a paper with someone who wrote a paper with Erdos has an Erdos number of 2; and so on)
    Profiled in the documentary 'N is a Number' (1991)
    Jewish

Why he might be annoying:

    He lived out of two suitcases, traveling between conferences and crashing at the houses of fellow mathematicians.
    His friends had to take care of the everyday details of his life, such as balancing his checkbook and filing his tax returns.
    He abused amphetamines.
    He called God 'the Supreme Fascist,' and accused him of hiding his socks and passport.
    He referred to colleagues who stopped doing math as 'dead.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He left Hungary because of rising anti-Semitism.
    He gave away his money to the needy and as prizes for solving mathematical problems.
    He said the meaning of life is 'to prove and conjecture.'
    He died 'in action' while attending a conference in Warsaw, Poland.
    The Erdos number gives math geeks their own version of 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 16 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 23 Votes: 13.04% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 10 Votes: 90.0% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 18 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 22 Votes: 45.45% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 43 Votes: 62.79% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 68 Votes: 60.29% Annoying
    In 2006, Out of 64 Votes: 46.88% Annoying