Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating biography with lucid cameos of math. topics, March 17, 1999
This beautiful book is an intellectually rich biography of one of the world's most prolific mathematicians. Amusingly, inoffensively and highly idiosyncratic, Erdos worked on hard problems in apparently simple fields, taking rather easily explained concepts and forging powerful new results and tools with a speed which astounded professional colleagues. Bruce Schechter does a magnificent job of clearly explaining what Erdos did and the many connections between his work and other areas of mathematics and, more generally, science. Through frequent digressions he paints both a humane portrait of a uniquely caring individual and a thumbnail sketch of western political oppression around the world during the first sixty years of this century. This book also will introduce readers, in a gentle and interesting manner, to the world of numbers and mathematics. The nature of prime numbers and how they are distributed, famous conjectures such as Goldbach's, topics in graph theory and combinatorial mathematics, and more are made accessible to the reader. The account of the controversy surrounding the "elementary" proof of the Prime Number Theorem benefits from the author's access to newly available material, and will be of interest to both laypeople and mathematicians. Other topics, introduced through natural association with the subject at hand, include Godel's Theorem, Russell's paradox, the Monty Hall problem (made famous by Marilyn vos Savant), the nature of infinity, proving theorems by contradiction, and the normal distribution. Though Erdos is known to many for his unusual life style and behavior, this book does not dwell on the bizarre but weaves such facets of his life into the more exciting mathematical development of the person. This biography ranks among the very best of the numerous works about mathematicians which I have read over the past 45 years. Arguably, more has been written about Erdos in the past decade or two than about any other mathematician. Despite this, Schechter's new contribution is an outstanding addition to the literature
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book shows that Erdos loved much more than numbers, November 16, 1998
By A Customer
I liked the other bio of Erdos by Paul Hoffman, "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers," but Schechter's bio presents a fuller picture, showing that Erdos loved a lot more than just numbers. There is a new review of Schechter's book from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) by a fellow who also reviewed the Hoffman book, and I think he hit the nail on the head when he said that he liked Hoffman's book, "But in many ways, Schechter's is a much better biography. Where Hoffman strayed away from Erdös too often for my taste, Schechter has crafted a much tighter and better focused account of mathematics' famous wayfarer." Why has Hoffman's book gotten more attention? The MAA reviewer says "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers seems to have been carefully released and well promoted -- I became aware of it well before it was published -- whereas Schechter's version just seemed to appear on the bookstore shelves unannounced one day." It's a shame that Schechter's book wasn't promoted more heavily, though the book did reach the Amazon top 50 after it was called "better" than Hoffman's book in the Wall Street Journal. This is the one to buy, in my opinion. Don't let accidents of hype lead you to read the wrong book. "My Brain Is Open" is the better book by far.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Comparison to the Hoffman book, September 22, 2001
I read this book after reading the one by Paul Hoffman. I would say that this one by Schechter is a little easier to read, flows better and is better organized. There is a great deal of overlap, but I was glad I read both. I liked reading about the Monty Hall problem and about Erdos' getting water all over in the Hoffman book, but Schechter had the conflict with Selberg in his book, which was meaningful to me. I guess I would recommend reading both.
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