Finally, I Am Becoming Stupider No More

I don`t know about 21 centuary but there was a time (during islamic era) when muslims mathmatician use to leave their worldly life in search for truth, truth according to them couldn`t be achieved unless you recieved knowledge.

``The essence of God can`t be understood, it is beyond all relation and knowledge is relation``

Al-Jumi

Mustafa Saheb, some of the trivia information that you have added through the interacts is rather interesting. Please consider including analogous stuff into any future articles that you write - it improves immensely the article`s readability.

Thank you for this one. I very much enjoyed it.

Re: # 10

Yes, the Erdos number is indeed the ultimate tribute to this great mathematician. However, I wished the focus of the article to be his life and not his accomplishments. For if it requires not an article but a book to cover those!

Re: # 9

[``But allow me to add that the condition of giving up food and sleep to do mathematics 19 hours a day to excel in science or in any other field, though might sound sufficient, is by no means necessary. History is full of such contradicting exemplars.``]

Erdos actually had to take amphetamines to help him through it. In fact, once his best friend Ron Graham bet him 500$ Erdos couldnt go a month without the amphetamines. Erdos took the bet, and actually won it, at the end of which, he remarked: ``You may have proved to me that I am not an addict, however, you set mathematics back a month.``

Very nice, Mustafa! I have to ask: why didn`t you bring up Erdos numbers?

Interesting, amusing and inspiring. Good work Mustafa.

But allow me to add that the condition of giving up food and sleep to do mathematics 19 hours a day to excel in science or in any other field, though might sound sufficient, is by no means necessary. History is full of such contradicting exemplars.

Re: # 4

[``I personally do not think it is because of the ``lack of resources`` but more due to the conditioning from childhood which gets drilled in and discourages independent thinking or new ways of looking at things.``]

That is very true. One of the abilities of Erdos was not just to solve a problem, but to really get down to it. He was never very happy when people brought pages long proofs to him. He was always looking for the shortest (though not the easiest) way out. For him no proof was complete unless it could be elegant enough to be included in ``The Book``.

The famous controversy over ``The Monty Hall Dillemma`` in which Erdos refused to agree with Marilyn vos Savant despite her repeated proofs on public television serves an excellent example. When asked why Erdos found it so hard to understand the proof, he remarked ``You`re telling me how. I wanna know why?!``

Re: # 6

Yes Ms. Rozaiba, I absolutely agree with you. In fact, I think Erdos was one of the nastiest people ever (among geniuses I mean). He led an extremely parasitic life feeding off other people wherever he went. He often had no regard for their feelings and would ask odd favors of them, totally unabashed. After all, the guy called God the Supreme Fascist!

But still, today the world remembers the name of Paul Erdos, the man and not his mother or his friend Ronald Graham or countless others who helped him along the way. So in a sense this article really is a tribute not only to the man, but also to the society in which he lived. Imagine someone like him walking around from door to door in search of someone to talk mathematics with in a city like Lahore ... not a pleasant picture.

And thanks for the advice, I`ll get right on it!

Mr. Mustafa, while you keep writing, you should realize folks like Erdos though unique aren`t really that cool. You should also find yourself a nice Chinese girlfriend who you can go out with while you enjoy that beautiful city.

Khuda tujeh kisi tofaan sey aashna karay key tairey behar kee maujoan mein iztiraab nahin..

kaash key hum log bhi sitaaroan ko choar kar apnay rastay khud dhoondtay..

#3 Mustafa saheb

[...The last paragraph begs the reader to think about the article, make the connections and ask himself why countries in the third world dont make scientific progress ... ]

It is funny you mention it. I have often thought about this issue a lot. Somebody once asked the Gillster to consider that as a topic and write a full-fledged article but he chickened out (the wimp!) and opted for the relatively easy topic of why Islamic countries don`t make scientific progress or some such kid`s stuff!

I personally do not think it is because of the ``lack of resources`` but more due to the conditioning from childhood which gets drilled in and discourages independent thinking or new ways of looking at things.

(Disclaimer: Terms like the ``Gillster`` and ``wimp`` should not be viewed negatively.)

Re: #2
Thanx, I will!

Re: # 1

Yeah, thats true ... alot of them are quirky. But we also have ppl who have led extremely normal lives and have contributed on an almost equal level. An excellent example would be Newton, one of the founding fathers of modern science.

During his cataract operation, he talked to a friend throughout, discussing mathematics.

Yes, the last paragraph in fact does not make sense because the article takes a sudden change of stance from being narrative to being questioning. However, chowk has this habit of removing bit and pieces here and there which might seem trivial. It did so with the subheading of this article which said: ``Lessons we can learn from a genius``.

The last paragraph begs the reader to think about the article, make the connections and ask himself why countries in the third world dont make scientific progress ... is it because the omnipresent ``lack of resources`` argument or is there really something inherently wrong with the way we do science?

I could have stated the questions and answers explicitly but then that would just have been me imposing my opinions on the reader ... I think this way is much better, give the reader all of the facts and let him/her make the connections themselves.

Keep writing Mr. Mustafa!

A highly interesting account. Most geniuses are idiosyncratic - but few to this degree. Or perhaps publishing papers was Paul Erdos` way of mooching off his co-authors.

So, how DOES one ``do`` mathematics during a cataract operation?

The last two sentences make no sense and you could have left them out - and the article would have been better.