[HM] Erdos' Quote

Antreas P. Hatzipolakis (xpolakis@otenet.gr)
Wed, 1 Sep 1999 00:29:12 +0300 (EET DST)

Well... it seems that no one knows what mathematics is. It's always "something
else" (*)

But how about what is a mathematician?
<q>
Erdos liked to quote a colleague's remark that "A mathematician is a machine
for converting coffee into theorems"
</q>
http://www.scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Erdos.html

Now, who was this "colleague" ?
Was it Renyi, as I read once in a sci.math posting (but without references)?

(*) What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has really
succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something else.
S.M. Ulam,_Adventures of a Mathematician_, U of Calif. Press 1991, pp. 273-4

Antreas