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"Want to meet Erdos?" mathematicians would ask. "Just stay here and wait. He'll show up."
--
Bruce Schechter, in My Brain Is Open : The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos (1998), p. 14

 

Paul Erdos

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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

 

His language had a special vocabulary — not just "the SF" [God] and "epsilon" [child] but also "bosses" (women), "slaves" (men), "captured" (married), "liberated" (divorced), "recaptured" (remarried), "noise" (music), "poison" (alcohol), "preaching" (giving a mathematics lecture), "Sam" (the United States), and "Joe" (the Soviet Union). When he said someone had "died," Erdős meant that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had "left," the person had died.

 

Paul Erdos

 

You have no control over your cat! You can't say to your cat, "Cat, heel! Stay! Wait! Lie down! Roll over!" 'Cause the cat's just gonna be sitting there going, "Interesting words … have you finished?" While you're shouting all this to your cat, your dog's next to you, going … [mimes obeying all commands] "What the hell are you doing? I'm talking to the cat!" "Oh, I'm sorry!"

 

Eddie Izzard

 

In a never-ending search for good mathematical problems and fresh mathematical talent, Erdős crisscrossed four continents at a frenzied pace, moving from one university or research center to the next. His modus operandi was to show up on the doorstep of a fellow mathematician, declare, "My brain is open," work with his host for a day or two, until he was bored or his host was run down, and then move on to another home.
Erdős's motto was not "Other cities, other maidens" but "Another roof, another proof." He did mathematics in more than 25 different countries, completing important proofs in remote places and sometimes publishing them in equally obscure journals.

 

Paul Erdos

 

I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!" "Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you f**king morons."

 

Bill Hicks