Finals are winding down. Graph theory was Monday, Thermal was today – the end of my woes will be PDE on Friday.
But, however badly graph theory might have gone, I did come out of it with something few others have.
Paul Erdős is a peculiar character in the world of Mathematics. Possibly one of the most noted mathematicians of modern times. He did some brilliant and incredible things, that are worthy of several posts each. But he was also one of the most notably prolific mathematicians, writing around 1475 different mathematical articles, with 511 different people. To commemorate such prodigious work, friends created the Erdős number – your distance away from Erdős in terms of publications. People who co-authored a paper -with- Erdős have an Erdős number of 1. People who co-authored papers with them have a number 2. Etc, etc. Most active mathematicians, I read somewhere, have an Erdős number of no more than 8. Anyone who hasn’t published a paper with someone with an Erdős number is then said to have an Erdős number of infinity.
And, while I have yet to publish anything at all, and thus find an Erdős number out of my reach, I do have something almost as good.
Consider.
This is Paul Erdős, in 1952, with the children (epsilons) of some colleagues. In his lap is Barbie Benzer, now Barbie Freidin. We therefore give her an Erdős-Lap number of 1.
Therefore, Oleg Pikhurko has an Erdős-Lap number of 2, as he is shown here sitting in Barbie’s lap.
Therefore, while I wish it were a more flattering picture, I have an Erdős-Lap number of 3.
It is surprisingly difficult to ask your professor if you can sit in his lap.
