Erdös first did mathematics at the age of three, but for the last twenty-five years of his life, since the death of his mother, he put in nineteen-hour days, keeping himself fortified with 10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin, strong espresso, and caffeine tablets. "A mathematician," Erdos was fond of saying, "is a machine for turning coffee into theorems."
Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
"A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems."
The author of the phrase is not Erdős, but Alfréd Rényi. See http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Renyi.html.
Posted by: Pablo Stafforini | January 06, 2009 at 12:10 AM
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Renyi.html
Posted by: Hoom | February 16, 2009 at 06:13 PM