Paul Erdös(1913-1996)

A child prodigy, Erdos independently discovered the principle of negative numbers around age three. Around the same time, he was able to multiply two three-digit numbers in his head, and amuse visitors with his ability to calculate how many seconds they had been alive. Though he never married or had children of his own, Erdos delighted in children and referred to them as "epsilons." Other examples of Erdos' personalized vocabulary include referring to the Soviet Union and the United States as "Joe" (for Stalin) and "Sam" (for Uncle Sam), calling music, even music he liked, "noise," labeling mathematicians who had stopped doing math as "dead" and the dead as having "left." God, in whom Erdos did not believe, was the "Supreme Fascist" or "SF."