Paul Erdős: Number

Paul Erdős was Hungarian mathematician and freelancer. Explore interesting quotes on number.
Paul Erdős: 36 quotes2 likes

“God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.”

Paul Erdős

Referencing Albert Einstein&#x27;s famous remark that &quot;God does not play dice with the universe&quot;, this is attributed to Erdős in &quot;Mathematics : Homage to an Itinerant Master&quot; by D. Mackenzie, in Science 275:759 (1997), but has also been stated to be a comment originating in a talk given by Carl Pomerance on the Erdős-Kac theorem, in San Diego in January 1997, a few months after Erdős&#x27;s death. Confirmation of this by Pomerance is reported in a statement posted to the School of Engineering, Computer Science &amp; Mathematics, University of Exeter http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/mrwatkin//kac-pomerance.txt, where he states it was a paraphrase of something he imagined Erdős and Mark Kac might have said, and presented in a slide-show, which subsequently became reported in a newspaper as a genuine quote of Erdős the next day. In his slide show he had them both reply to Einstein&#x27;s assertion: &quot;Maybe so, but something is going on with the primes.&quot; <br class="br">Misattributed

“If numbers aren't beautiful, I don't know what is.”

Paul Erdős

Frequent remark, as quoted in My Brain Is Open : The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos (1998) by Bruce Schechter, p. 14