Genre: Biography (mathematical)
Year Published: 1998
While I was walking to the train station yesterday, having just finished this book, I tried to think of a historical figure to compare Paul Erdős with, so that non-mathematicians could appreciate the enormity of his legacy. The best I could come up with was an unholy cross of Buddha and Bach: Buddha for his itinerant, indigent lifestyle and complete generosity; Bach for his highly prolific genius. (Now try to imagine Buddha with Bach's crazy white wig. Doesn't the imagery alone make it worth it?)
With that bizarre hybrid in mind, I admit it cannot be easy to begin to contemplate how to write a fitting biography of Erdős. There are probably a dozen directions in which an author could go. As much as I enjoyed The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, it never quite achieved whatever lofty ideal was in the back of my mind. Apparently the book grew out of a biographical story that Hoffman wrote for The Atlantic, and it shows: it retains the jumpy, floating structure of a typical high-class magazine piece instead of assuming the more linear pace of a typical work of nonfiction. Even more tellingly, we as readers are never made to think too hard in a mathematical sense: never are we given even a sketchy outline of one of Erdős's thousands of proofs, nor do we learn much more about number theory (Erdős's field) than the definition of prime numbers.
Having said all this, I'd like to reiterate that I did enjoy this book very much -- I barely put it down once I'd begun it. I simply wish that it had achieved more. This volume is a mere glimpse into the life of one of the most intriguing mathematicians to ever live (and that is saying a lot!) If someone could marry the very good, anecdote-heavy legwork that Hoffman has done with a bit more serious biographical information and a deeper insight into Erdős's mathematics, we'd have the makings of a first-rate biography. As it stands now, it feels somehow incomplete . . . part book and part fog.
Recommended? Only if you are a mathematician, or particularly fond of same.
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