Rating: 
Summary: Enchanting
Review: I wish I could have met this man.
I wish I could BE this man.
Many people seek a purpose in their lives, and few find it. Of those who find it, few are able to pursue it right to the end of themselves; and out of those, few have the exact mentality to do it so ably.
This man appears to be one of the very, very few who found a purpose immediately; set upon it to the point of excluding everything that was not it; and had such capability within it that he could not waste a moment.
I wish I could say the same about what I've had of my life so far, much less the whole when I'm dead.
It's an enchanting book if you understand at least rudimentary mathematics and enjoy reading about people with serious purpose.
Rating: 
Summary: Erdos Not "eccentric", Just a Good Man
Review: One amazon reviewer, Mr. Gimbel, describes exactly the experience of this lay reader, new to Mr. Erdos. There is much of interest, however, there is a caricature that unfolds as you progress through the book. Thus the "mad scientist" stereotype gains new blood where, in fact, I suspect that Mr. Erdos life did, indeed, do away with that creation.A note from Ezra Pound fit's here. In his book, ABC of Reading, he scorns the "mad scientist" characterization as an invention of others who actually envy the skill of certain minds. Unfortunately, many skilled minds take up this stereotype as their allotted script, live it, and so, reinforce it. Many others, however, are simply and fully human, not easily confined to the box of "mathematician" or the seemingly benign but usually patronizing label "eccentric". Mr. Erdos seems to fit in no inhuman boxes. This is what I took from the book and would ask any other reader to read it with that lens open (though I believe it will become obvious once you see Mr. Erdos' passion). The only way you can love numbers as he did is to love people. The book will tell you how he lived on only what he needed, giving away thousands (e.g. keeping $720 of a $50,000 prized) to those who needed it more than he and promoting the careers of younger, promising mathematicians. Also read the book to see his love for children. I won't go with too many examples here. The reading is worth seeing for yourself. "Property is a nuisance", he said. That statement is far from cold or unconscious in its benefit to men. We can easily see how hard it is for most of us to give up obvious excess, let alone live in direct proportion to our needs. Thanks to the reviewer, Mr. Gimbel, for detailing the failings and outlining the substance of them. You have shed good light, along with your encouragement to try to see in this book the person of Paul Erdos. In that, I enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: The man who truly loved people
Review: This is a disappointing book. Certainly Paul Hoffman should be commended for writing a math book that so many people find lively and informative. Probably it is the only profile of a mathematician that many people will read. But the author makes mistakes of several types. There are what might by typographical errors. For example, on page 252 we find a description of Béla Bolobás who "won Hungary's infamous student math competition..." If the competition is in fact infamous, the reader is never told why. There are errors of fact. For example, a fainting episode described on pages 244 and 245 as having happened in Boca Raton actually happened in Baton Rouge and was later repeated in Kalamazoo. We learn in this book that Kurt Gödel was an Austrian. This will come as sad news to Czechs and Moravians. There are less objective examples. For instance Erdös is credited with developing the probabilistic method. While Erdös certainly championed the method and demonstrated its power, it is overreaching to give him all the credit. I would not want to guess as to who first used it, although some attribute it to William Feller. Certainly Tibor Szele used the method in a paper published in 1943. The paper was reviewed by Erdös in Mathematical Reviews. He did not use it until his paper on Ramsey Theory in 1947. But these sorts of problems are mostly minor and have been perhaps corrected in subsequent printings. There is a deeper problem with the structure of the book. Much of the book is based on the author's 1987 article which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. Discover Magazine also published some of the book. As magazine articles, I thought they worked very well. But the book has a disjointed impressionistic tone that seems distracting. And while Hoffman gathered enough material for two fine magazine articles, he doesn't seem to have enough for a book. So it is diluted with superfluous, albeit interesting, material. These detract from the story. For example, there are discussions of Fermat's Last Theorem and Andrew Wiles contribution. There is a discussion of infinity and set cardinality similar to what would be found in a discrete math textbook published ten years ago (and sadly missing from most textbooks today). Gödel's incompleteness theorem is presented. But donations by Erdös to these things is given little discussion mostly because, I suppose, his contributions to those topics is tangential. Hoffman has a fascination with Erdös's brilliance, portraying him as an uncanny wizard. There is no denying he had an incredible mind. It's possible that all of the book's anecdotes are true. But still, they seem to miss the target. This is not how Erdös really was. His mind was human. He could interchange maximums and minimums and mix up quantifiers. He sometimes had trouble (as many great minds do) with arithmetic. I recall once asking him about an important theorem he proved with Endre Szemérdi. He didn't recall the result and seemed surprised by its existence. On one occasion he asked me to reproduce a proof he had previously shown me. We went through it twice when he asked to be left alone for half an hour. On my return he said, "I am sorry for being such a stupid old man. Yes, you are right. This proof is correct." No doubt, part of his success rested on natural talent. But much rests on his passion and dedication to mathematics. But again, I can forgive these problems. My most serious concern is the way this book reduces a kindhearted loveable human to caricature. While Hoffman interviewed many people, including Erdös, his account he seems to have missed the flesh and blood and left us with a wacko schematic. Nobody will deny that Erdös was a special man with a special personality. He warmly gave so much to so many; especially to young mathematicians and graduate students who would go on to owe much of their careers to his generosity. But portrayed here is something freakish, something best left to carnival sideshows and wax museums. Fascination with his personality seems to be growing; drawn in grotesque proportions. Time Magazine profiled him under the heading "The Oddball's Oddball." His eccentricities are outlines in Clifford Pickover's book on twisted brilliant minds, Strange Brains and Genius. One wonders how much responsibility Hoffman's book has in contributing to this persona. The reduction extends even to the title. Paul Erdös did not love only numbers. He loved history, politics, philosophy, science. He loved ideas in just about any area. But most of all, he loved people
Rating: 
Summary: considering why I read this book
Review: I read this book to find out more about Paul Erdos' personality. There was a fair amount of math in the book, so I skipped over those parts. I enjoyed reading the anecdotes which gave me some insight into this fascinating character. I don't believe this book was intended to be a piece of great writing, and so it certainly was not that. Merle Miller's 'Plain Speaking' about H.S.Truman was written much better.
Rating:
Summary: The story of Paul Erdos
Review: The story of Paul Erdos is quite an unsusual one. A man, mathematician, whose life has not been a journey without obastacles, but rather he faced such problems in life that could prevent him of "doing mathematics". Neverthenless, he stayed on the track and provided a mathematical community with tremendous resources. The book starts with his early ages in Hungary describing his beginnings of mathematical challenge. The actual account of Erods' life is not very detail, as the author also writes about other significant mathematical activities. There are many "little" events of Erods' life that is included in the book, provided by his closest friends, however, I believe that the biography of Paul Erdos would be much better if it actually described his journey in a more greater detail, rather than just some smaller events especially in the mid years of his life.
Rating:
Summary: Great biography of a unconventional scientist
Review: Paul Erdos lived a fascinating life, and the book tells much of the history of Erdos and the environment of the time. This book is a must read for mathematicians or any other scientist. I am a chemist and found the book a great read.
Rating:
Summary: A little dissapointed
Review: I was expecting to learn a lot about Paul Erdos from this book. But... This is a 250-page book, only about 50 pages contain information about Paul. The main part consists of a collection of (irrelavent, I must say) stories in mathematics. I think the more appropriate name for the book should be "Brief stories about mathematicians". The most serious problem is, in my opinion, the author didn't introduced mathematics quite well. I see he understand those math concepts in a decent level, but from his writing a non-mathematician will not be inspired much.
Rating:
Summary: Story of a weird man with a great mind
Review: This is not a mathematical book, neither it is a book on the history of mathematics. It is the story of a man, and of a man whose story is worth being taught. Actually I read this book in italian, but I think the main quality of the book is not the style of writing, but the crazy passion for math showed and in some sense explained. I reccomend this book to everyone who enjoys light reading about math, like "Fermat's Enigma".
Rating:
Summary: Not quite a biography
Review: This is not quite a biography in the sense that has almost no reference to his way of thinking, his intelectual development during his youth and adultness, etc. It's mostly an account of part of his mathematical work, including many additional maths that could be considered unnecessary for the book I expected to get. It's a fine book just because it's about a mathematician and mathematics.
Rating:
Summary: better than I expected
Review: I understand how some readers thought of this as a long magazine article. But, in my humble opinion, that is a neat thing. The author talks about alot of things besides a simple list of Erdos' achievements. It is a very readable book. The author talks about such as: Hungarian history, Fermat's last theorem, the history of math, etc. This is a fun read... Let me put it this way, after reading this, I am looking for other things by the same author, Paul Hoffman, and I hope he writes many other books as pleasurable to read...
|
