The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (1998)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
My son is 3 1/2, and he loves this book. He loves that there was a kid who loved numbers so much he spent his whole life studying them. He loves that he gets to see a boy grow into an adult, who grows into an old man. If you want to share your love of math with a kid, Erdös' story is a great one to share. It's also a great conversation starter about how much or how little to focus on any one thing. I love knowing Erdös' story, but I'm not sure I'd like to be him.
[0] - http://www.amazon.com/The-Boy-Who-Loved-Math/dp/1596433078/r...
It's out of print, but might be found at your local library or bought used on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/The-Cat-Numberland-Ivar-Ekeland/dp/081...).
The argument is the same, and they're both invalid. It takes way too much effort. I'm not resizing a window I use for everything just so I can fullscreen it when I switch to another tab and resize it again when I return.
I'm pretty certain my mum, my daughter and pretty much everyone who's ever used a computer can do the former. I doubt that too many can do the latter.
The difference is that one is accessible to the average user. Outside of Developerland, most people don't even realize that the page they are viewing has a source which can be inspected or changed.
N Is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős
The information about amphetamines made an impression. His friends at times tried to discourage him, but he claimed that without them, he could create no mathematics. Given his colossal output, this means that a significant part of the landscape of modern mathematics owes it existence to this drug.
How he learned the drug would help him, and how he got his hands on it, and when and how his use of it started, are questions I'm very curious about, but the book doesn't go there.
Erdős was a heavy user of many other stimulants (like coffee), but only started to use antidepressants and then amphetamines in 1971 when he was 58 after his mother died. He was already established as a first rate mathematician (he should have won the Fields Medal), and using amphetamines to work 19 hours a day was his way of coping with the death of his mother.
See http://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul%20Erd%F6s%20bio-rev2.... for more.
"I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. "
It's nice when good work gets rediscovered here.
Tell your friend he's doing the SF's work. Then again, maybe he's doing the devil's work if the SF is bent on keeping all the good theorems to himself.