Paul Erdös's Contribution To Mathematics

710 Words2 Pages

Paul Erdös was a Hungarian mathematician. He was introduced to math by his parents who were both math teachers. He was mostly home schooled. He was the reason for the advancements of several major branches of mathematics. The contributions he made to mathematics have served to advance human knowledge. His family comes from Jewish decent but they do not practice the religion. His father was a prisoner of war during the First World War. Lajos learned english from some novels he read during his imprisonment, after he was set free and went back to Hungary he taught Paul how to speak english.
Paul Erdös was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 26, 1913 and died on September 20, 1996 in Warsaw, Poland. Paul Erdös comes from a Jewish family and the original family name was Engländer. Neither his mother or father practiced the Jewish religion though. Paul's father, Lajos, and his mother, Anna, had two daughters by the age of three and five that died of scarlet fever just a few days before Paul was born. So naturally Anna and Lajos were extremely protective of their son Paul. Paul was introduced into Mathematics by his own parents both being teachers of Mathematics themselves. Paul was about one year old when World War I broke out, Paul father Lajos was captured by the Russian army when it was attacking the Austro-Hungarian troops. Lajos Spent six years as a war prisoner in Siberia, Russia. Almost immediately after Lajos capture, Paul's mother Anna employed a German governess to take care of Paul because she was working during the day. Anna, who was excessively protective of Paul because of the deaths of her two daughters, kept Paul away from school for most of his early years. Instead Paul had a tutor that would teach him at home....

... middle of paper ...

...of primes.
Therefore, Paul Erdös has been a great influence in the math community today because of his discoveries. Some of his discoveries were in the number theory, graph theory, and in combinatorics. His theory's are still being taught today, many students of mathematics actually have picked too write about him because his life was so interesting. He learned math while at home and from his parents. He said that he fell in love with numbers when he looked at the mathematics books his parents had. He said that they would amuse him while his mother worked long hours and his father was in a prisoner of war. It's amazing how he learned because he wasn't allowed to attend school until he was about the age of ten years old, the reason being that both of his sisters died a few days before he was born from scarlet fever and his parents were extremely protective of him.

More about Paul Erdös's Contribution To Mathematics

Open Document