Humor

Poor Grand Old Man

Paul (Pál) Erdős
Allen J. Schwenk
mathematics, Paul Erdös, number theory, prim numbers, combinatorics, graph theory

Who can take prime numbers and find their density
Using only techniques he calls elementary?
P. G. O. M. can show it’s log n over n.
P. G. O. M. can, he just mumbles log log n
To make it all come true!

Who can take each edge with fixed probability
Put them all together and prove connectivity?
P. G. O. M. can do it asymptotically,
P. G. O. M. can, he just mumbles log log n
To make it all come true!

Who’ll tell you that his age
Is more than you would gauge?
By billions you would slight the figure.
Although it can’t be found with rigor,
We’re glad to say its growing bigger.

Couples in his lingo are known as boss and slave.
Put the two together, that’s how epsilons are made,
In Uncle Paul’s slang, oh in Uncle Paul’s slang.
Raise your glasses in a toast, drink the poison you like most
And he’ll respond with O. J.

Who often gets to look
Into God’s perfect book?
Proofs chosen by The Great Librarian
Are elegant and slick, not hairy, an’
They often sound a bit Hungarian!

Who can take a sequence, partition it at will,
Find arithmetic progressions remaining in it still?
P. G. O. M. can, by citing Van der Waerden,
P. G. O. M. can, he just mumbles log log n
To make it all come true!

Who else can help you take
An Erdös number great,
Collaborate with skill and power,
Reduce it to one in an hour,
And have time left to take a shower?

Whose mind is always open to problems old and new,
And who makes his conjectures worth a thousand bucks or two?
Uncle Paul can, and he seldom has to pay.
Just try to solve a few, you’ll find out they’re hard to do,
It always happens that way.

And yet, P. G. O. M. can, he just mumbles log log n
To make it all come true!

The child Erdős
Vera T. Sós and Pál Erdős
Paul Erdős said: I’m
over 55 years P. G. O. M. Poor Grand Old Man
over 60 years + L. D. Living Dead
over 65 years + A. D. Archeological Discovery
over 70 years + L. D. Legally Dead
over 75 years + C. D. Counts Dead
Paul Erdös performs

(Source: “Poor Grand Old Man” to the tune of “The Candy Man”. Lyrics by Allen J. Schwenk. Presented to Paul Erdős at the Sixth International Graph Theory Conference, Kalamazoo, 2 June 1988.)

Pál Erdős
(1913—1996)
by W. Kuperberg