One of the most interesting and productive mathematicians of all time was Paul Erdos (1913-1996). He was author of more than 1416 papers, and his name became associated with a labeling process for mathematicians, an idea called the Erdos Number. A mathematician who co-authored a paper with Erdos could claim Erdos Number 1. A mathematician who co-authored with a co-author of Erdos had Erdos Number 2. And so on.
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya (one of the poets at the 2019 Bridges MathArts Conference) has written a wonderful poem to celebrate Erdos; I offer below the central stanza of Bonch-Osmolovskaya's poem; the complete poem is available here.
from: Paul Erdos by Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
he inhaled and exhaled mathematics
so people around him exhaled it
together with him
it went viral
five hundred and four of them
then others together with them
six thousand five hundred and ninety three
then others with them
thirty three thousands six hundreds and five
then others . . .
up to thirteen links in a chain
in every direction
until it exhausted the total number
of those who do mathematics
. . .
Follow these links for more: the complete poem; info about Paul Erdos; info about Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya.
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