Someone went through Paul Erdos’ FBI files and found that all suspicious activities was really just him doing math.
A Hungarian born in the early 20th century, Paul (Pal) Erdős, mathematician, was well-known and well-liked, the sort of eccentric scientist from the Soviet sphere that made Feds’ ears perk up in mid-century America. His lifetime generated over 500 scholarly papers and a cult of collaborators. The Erdős number has become a mathy merit badge, and for those that don’t hold a coveted Erdős number of 1, there are resources to determine just how many degrees of celebrity separation exist between the man himself and other technical paper bylines.
But, try as they might, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was never able to find much motivation behind his movements and acquaintances beyond the math of it all.
His political criticisms applied equally to both sides of the Cold War crowd.
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