A Brush with Greatness

“Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.”
Paul Erdös, 1913-1996

Erdös, a Hungarian mathematician, pioneered the fields of number theory and combinatorics and was regarded as one of the century's greatest mathematicians. At the age of 20 he discovered a proof for a classic theorem of number theory that states that there is always at least one prime number between any positive integer and its double.

When I worked for the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Clemson University between 1986-1994, I was privileged to meet Dr. Erdös. He was a frequent visitor to the department as one of the faculty, Dr. Renu Laskar, was a close personal friend and colleague of his. Although his health was failing in the last visit, his mathematical mind was as sharp as ever. Phyllis Brown

For additional information on Paul Erdös, visit this web site:http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Erdos.html

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Phyllis Brown, Editor
College of Sciences Newsletter
SciNews@odu.edu
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