Mast Maja Madi

Yes, that pretty much sums up my sojourn in Bangalore over the last one month - having awesome fun.

The Man who loved numbers

I am now in the midst of reading this book - The man who loved numbers. This is a biography of Paul Erdos, the famous number theorist by Paul Hofman. The book was actually bought quite a few months back - my passion at one point - but having time to read it now. I was fascinated and did quite a bit of number theory in those nice old days when I was my brightest - class 8 to 12 - after which there was this steady decline. So, anyway. The book is a nice history of mostly 20th century mathematics and mathematicians, mostly from number theory. I can tell it would be most boring read for a non-mathematically inclined. But, I just could not put the book down. I don't quite like Hofman's writing style though, filled with quotations. And he does digress from one topic to another quite a bit, but not quite the same nice way as PG Woodhouse. He is a good historian and biographer though. And so much I learnt and relearnt about all those conjectures and theorems of number theory which I had almost forgotten. Felt like those good old days, when all that we needed was a good solid maths riddle and we would be on it for days. Why don't I enjoy doing something like that anymore? Did I choose the wrong subject? Was it just for the money? Am i burnt out? ok, not any more. Idle mind...stupid me.