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Paul Erdős

Hungarian mathematician (1913-1996) · Hungary · Academics · Died at 83

Paul Erdős is read about 1,092 times a day, in 68 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 22 October 2026

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A Hungarian mathematician who treated math as a nomadic social practice, publishing around 1,500 papers with more than 500 collaborators - so many that researchers measure their proximity to him in steps, the Erdős number.

ScientistsAcademicMathematics20th Century

A life in dates

1996Died20 September 19961994Honorary Doctorate of Haifa UniversityAward1993“Television is something the Russians invented to destroy American education.”In their wordsAs quoted in Comic Sections : The Book of Mathematical Jokes, Humour, Wit, and Wisdom (1993) by Des MacHale

1992Honorary Doctor of the Charles University of PragueAward1990“Another roof, another proof.”In their wordsHis motto, as he roamed about the world, as the guest of other mathematicians, as quoted in A Tribute to Paul Erdős (1990) edited by Alan

“Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five.”In their wordsJuly 1990As quoted in "Ramsey Theory" by Ronald L. Graham and Joel H. Spencer, in Scientific American (July 1990), p. 112-117

1989Foreign Member of the Royal SocietyAward1986Honorary Doctor of the University of LimogesAward1983Wolf Prize in MathematicsAward1958Kossuth PrizeAward1954“I'm not competent to judge. But no doubt he was a great man.”In their wordsResponse to a question by an agent of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1954 as to what he thought of Karl Marx, often cited

1951Cole Prize in Number TheoryAward1945Guggenheim FellowshipAward1913Born26 March 1913

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

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In their own words 10

,
Paul Erdős
,
10 statements, newest first

  1. Television is something the Russians invented to destroy American education.

    1993, As quoted in Comic Sections : The Book of Mathematical Jokes, Humour, Wit, and Wisdom (1993) by Des MacHale, Own words

  2. Another roof, another proof.

    1990, His motto, as he roamed about the world, as the guest of other mathematicians, as quoted in A Tribute to Paul Erdős (1990) edited by Alan, Own words

  3. Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five.

    Jul 1990, As quoted in "Ramsey Theory" by Ronald L. Graham and Joel H. Spencer, in Scientific American (July 1990), p. 112-117, Own words

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Awards

Honorary Doctorate of Haifa University1994
Honorary Doctor of the Charles University of Prague1992
Foreign Member of the Royal Society1989
Honorary Doctor of the University of Limoges1986
Wolf Prize in Mathematics1983
Kossuth Prize1958
Cole Prize in Number Theory1951
Guggenheim Fellowship1945

In their orbit

Father: Lajos Erdős

About this person

Born in Budapest on 26 March 1913, Erdős spent his career cracking open problems others had left unsolved, working across discrete mathematics, graph theory, number theory, and probability theory. He championed Ramsey theory, which examines how order emerges from chaos, and preferred solving longstanding puzzles to carving out new fields. He taught at universities in the U.S. and Israel but never settled, living out of a suitcase with the sole purpose of writing papers with other mathematicians. His eccentric, itinerant life and relentless output - waking hours devoted to proofs, even in old age - made collaboration itself a method. He died at a mathematics conference in Warsaw on 20 September 1996, still working.

Country
Hungary
Category
Academics
Type
Academic
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1913 to 1996 · aged 83

In common with Paul

Andrey KolmogorovBoth received Wolf Prize in MathematicsAndrew WilesBoth received Cole Prize in Number TheoryJean-Pierre SerreBoth received Wolf Prize in MathematicsManjul BhargavaBoth received Cole Prize in Number TheoryYitang ZhangBoth received Cole Prize in Number Theory

Academics from Hungary 1

Dávid Vitézy66.8

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