Weirder Maths by David Darling

Author:David Darling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Maths;Mathematical;Science;Puzzles;Problems;Facts;Prodigy;Infinity;Discovery;Solutions;Mensa;IQ;Fun;Weird;Wonderful;Paradox
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2019-04-09T11:56:37+00:00

‌Chapter 8

Weird Mathematicians

A lot of mathematicians are a little bit strange in one way or another. It goes with creativity.

– Peter Duren

James Waddell Alexander II always left his office window on the third floor of Fine Hall, Princeton University, open so that he could enter by climbing up the side of the building. An outstanding topologist who pioneered the concept known as cohomology as well as the theory of knots, Alexander was also an expert rock climber. In all likelihood, he’s the only person to have had a strange topological object – Alexander’s Horned Sphere – and a tricky ice route in the Colorado Rockies – Alexander’s Chimney – named after him.

Another American mathematician, Ronald Graham, is best known for his discovery of a ridiculously vast number, which found its way into the Guinness Book of Records for being the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof. He’s also featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for combining the talents of a world-class number theorist with those of a ‘highly skilled trampolinist and juggler’. Uniquely, Graham has been a past president of both the American Mathematical Society and the International Jugglers’ Association.

Every walk of life has its share of colourful characters and eccentrics but maths seems better endowed than most in this respect. There are top mathematicians, like Alexander and Graham, who stand out simply because they excel in some other, totally different sphere. Then there are those who are so immersed in maths, to the exclusion of almost everything else, that they become detached from the normal world and develop what, to the rest of us, seem oddball traits and personalities. Among the latter was the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, a close friend of Ronald Graham’s, who was so prolific that Graham was moved to devise the concept of the Erdős number. If you’ve ever co-authored an academic paper then you’ll probably have an Erdős number, which is the number of jumps needed to connect you with one of Erdős’s papers. Your Erdős number is 1 if you’re one of the 509 researchers who’ve actually co-authored a paper with the great man, 2 if you’ve co-authored with someone who’s co-authored with Erdős, and so on.

In a lifetime devoted to maths, and pretty much nothing else, Erdős’s output was a staggering 1,525 papers. He had no job or permanent home, and carried around the few possessions he owned in a couple of battered suitcases. Most of his earnings he gave to charity or offered as prizes for solving problems that, for some reason or other, he hadn’t yet managed to solve himself. He travelled from university to university, staying with mathematical friends who looked after him and collaborated with him until, after a few days, he’d worn them out with his intense, non-stop intellectual activity. In the last couple of decades of his life, he worked nineteen hours a day, heavily dosed on espresso, caffeine tablets, and amphetamines to keep him permanently alert. In 1979, concerned about his drug use, Graham bet him $500 that he couldn’t give up his habit for a month.

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