Comment by mjcohen
5 days ago
(I saw this on a math department bulletin board about 1960)
A theorem both deep and profound States that every circle is round But in a paper by Erdos Written in Kurdish A counterexample is found
5 days ago
(I saw this on a math department bulletin board about 1960)
A theorem both deep and profound States that every circle is round But in a paper by Erdos Written in Kurdish A counterexample is found
I suspect there is a great joke embedded in here, but sadly it went over my head. Any help?
Erdős rhymes with Kurdish.
EDIT: Oh and Erdős was the great collaborator. There is an Erdős number (Bacon and Ozzie too) which defines how close you are to him. eg if you co-authored a paper with Erdős you have a Erdős number of one. If you co-auth a paper with someone with an Erdős number of one, then you have an Erdős number of two etc.
I think that the Bacon (Kevin Bacon) number was the original and there is also a Black Sabbath number which is related to Ozzie (MHRiP).
I also gather that a very few people have managed a minimum measure of all three numbers. Feynman might be one of them (its too late to check).