Zentralblatt MATH
Publications of (and about) Paul Erdös
Zbl.No: 849.01024
Autor: Babai, Laszlo
Title: In and out of Hungary: Paul Erdös, his friends, and times. (In English)
Source: Miklós, D. (ed.) et al., Combinatorics, Paul Erdös is eighty. Vol. 2. Budapest: János Bolyai Mathematical Society, Bolyai Soc. Math. Stud. 2, 7-95 (1996).
Review: This paper is a wonderful biographical sketch of Paul Erdös, the most prolific mathematician of our time. Many of my friends, mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike enjoyed this paper very much because it has a pleasant personal style based on objective facts. In the paper we can meet many friends of Paul Erdös, many child prodigies and many new personal perspectives of historical facts of our century from the peace à la Versailles to the Holocaust in Hungary, from WWI to WWII, from all corners of the world Erdös visited. The first part is an essay on some aspects of the career of Paul Erdös. The second part is a year-by-year account of random events and anecdotes. The paper contains 38 interesting pictures, photos. In the Appendix we can find the current jobs of Paul Erdös, prizes and awards founded and received by him, his honorary degrees and his most frequent coauthors. All readers of this paper will surely learn a lot, and will surely enjoy it.
Reviewer: J.G.Székely (Bowling Green)
Classif.: * 01A70 Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies
01A60 Mathematics in the 20th century
Index Words: Biography
Biogr.Ref.: Erdös, Paul
© European Mathematical Society & FIZ Karlsruhe & Springer-Verlag