The story of great mathematician Paul Erdős has been narrated by author Paul Hoffman in an interesting book "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers".

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) was an influential Hungarian mathematician who in the latter part of his life spent a great deal of time writing papers with a large number of colleagues, working on solutions to outstanding mathematical problems. He published more papers during his lifetime (at least 1,525) than any other mathematician in history. Another great mathematician Leonhard Euler published a greater number of total pages of mathematical writings but fewer separate papers i.e. about 800.

Erdős spent a large portion of his later life living out of a suitcase, visiting his over 500 collaborators around the world. The life of this great mathematician should inspire today's scientific community and researchers to reconsider collaboration as the preferred way of research work.

The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual has collaborated with a large and broad number of peers.





Two of the select works of Paul Erdős find their mention in List of important publications in mathematics. Interestingly, ancient Indian text Līlāvatī Siddhānta Shiromani and Bijaganita by legendary Indian mathematician Bhāskara II finds its mention in the top mathematical works of all times.