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A conjecture both deep and profound
Is whether a circle is round.
In a paper of Erdős
Written in Kurdish
A counterexample is found.
--
Limerick attributed to Leo Moser, in Handbook of Combinatorics (1995) edited by Ronald L. Graham, Ch. 17
--
A conjecture thought to be sound Was that every circle was round In a paper of Erdős written in Kurdish A counterexample is found!
--
Attributed to an unnamed colleague, quoted in "The Magician of Budapest" by Peter Schumer, in The Edge of the Universe : Celebrating Ten Years of Math Horizons (2007) by Deanna Haunsperger and Stephen Kennedy, p. 110

 

Paul Erdos

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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop.

 

Black Elk

 

And the seasons they go round and round,
And the painted ponies go up and down,
We’re all captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go 'round and 'round and 'round
In the circle game.

 

Joni Mitchell

 

In the late 1980s Erdős heard of a promising high school student named Glen Whitney who wanted to study mathematics at Harvard but was a little short the tuition. Erdős arranged to see him and, convinced of the young man's talent, lent him $1,000. He asked Whitney to pay him back only when it would not cause financial strain. A decade later Graham heard from Whitney, who at last had the money to repay Erdős. "Did Erdős expect me to pay interest?" Whitney wondered. "What should I do?" he asked Graham. Graham talked to Erdős. "Tell him," Erdős said, "to do with the $1,000 what I did."

 

Paul Erdos

 

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.

 

J. Robert Oppenheimer

 

Hunagarian mathematician Paul Erdős, although an atheist, spoke of an imaginary book, in which God has written down all the most beautiful mathematical proofs. When Erdős wanted to express particular appreciation of a proof, he would exclaim "This one's from the Book!". This viewpoint expresses the idea that mathematics, as the intrinsically true foundation on which the laws of our universe are built, is a natural candidate for what has been personified as God by different religious mystics.

 

Paul Erdos