#### Topic: The two cultures of mathematics.

https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/2cultures.pdf

This is pretty interesting. Essentially you have "problem solvers" who focus on solving specific problems and derive principles from them sometimes, that can cross connect and grow math. On the other hand, you have folks who develop theories. These theories are working off of or towards general principles by definition. It's not a rigid, rather it's a fluid distinction, but exists. It's especially interesting given most of computer science is more discrete / combinatorial than theoretical in nature. At least that's the impression I get. I don't think we have *too* many broad sweeping theoretical underpinnings, except for the sparse ones that work within number theories and stuff like that.

Paul Erdos was an amazing man. The most prolific mathematician of the 20th century. Wrote over a thousand papers. (Co wrote?)

More of a problem solver.

#### Re: The two cultures of mathematics.

http://www.untruth.org/~josh/math/Paul% … o-rev2.pdf

Lol. Paul Erdos took amphetamines all the time.

Like all of Erdös's friends, [fellow mathematician Ronald Graham] was concerned about his drug-taking. In 1979, Graham bet Erdös $500 that he couldn't stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdös accepted the challenge, and went cold turkey for thirty days. After Graham paid up — and wrote the$500 off as a business expense — Erdös said, "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." He promptly resumed taking pills, and mathematics was the better for it.