# The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Hoffman

> Source: https://ollybritton.com/notes/books/the-man-who-loved-only-numbers/ · Updated: 2024-02-01 · Tags: book, notes

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> Erdős first did mathematics at the age of three, but for the last twenty-five years of his life, since the death of his monther, he put in nineteen-hour days, keeping himself forified with 10 to 20 milligrams of Bezedrine or Ritalin, strong espresso, and caffeine tablets. "A mathematician," Erdős was fond of saying, "is a machine for turning coffee into theorems."

> Erdős's ability to thik about disparate things simultaneously was legendary. Michael Golomb, who wrote a joint paper with Erdoős in 1955, recalled a time in the 1940s when he came across Erdős playing chess with a local master named Nat Fine, "whom Erdoős could beat only rarely, usually by psychological warefare... I saw Nat with his head between his hands, deep in thought considering the next move, while Erdős seemed to be engrossed in studying a volumnnous sencyclopedia of medicine... I asked him, 'What are you doing Paul? Aren't you playing against Nat?' His answer was, 'Don't interrupt me... I am proving a theorem.'"

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