The University of Memphis and the Department of Mathematical Sciences will host the fifth annual Paul Erdos Lecture Series, in honor of one of the most recognized mathematicians today and Saturday.
The lecture, "Phase Transitions in Combinatorics and Computer Science," is by Jennifer Chayes, professor of mathematics at UCLA, manager of the Theory Group at Microsoft and research professor of math and physics at the University of Washington.
The lecture series is named after Paul Erdos, one of the most honored mathematicians of the 20th century. Born in Budapest, Hungary, Erdos traveled across the world eventually finding his way to Memphis where he worked as an adjunct professor of mathematics at The U of M.
Erdos has influenced as many as 50 professors, including current math professors Cecil Schelp and Cecil Rousseau.
Bela Bollobas, chair of mathematical sciences, said Erdos was not a conventional mathematician, but he was one of the most well-known and respected people of his field.
"He was an absolutely prolific mathematician," Bollobas said. "The fascinating thing about him is every mathematician in the world has a job, teaches somewhere. He never had a proper job in his life. He wrote papers in many fields."
Besides being a genius in his field, Erdos was also a contributor to many important theories and new ideas of thinking.
"He worked in many fields in number theories, probability theories and approximation theories," Bollobas said. "He proposed a new way at looking at things using randomness, which is amazingly important, even in computer science. Even though he himself may have not have touched a computer, his methods are terribly important."
Dick Schelp, math professor at The U of M and understudy of Erdos, remembers Erdos as a brilliant mathematician.
"Erdos was probably the most famous mathematician of the 20th century because his total number of papers is over 1,500 journal articles," Schelp said. "Most mathematicians are considered to be excellent if they write 70 research articles."
Erdos has won mathematics most coveted award, the Wolf Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Chayes lecture today will be in the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday's lecture will be given from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Dunn Hall.
