• buckykat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    From the Wikipedia page for Paul Erdős:

    After his mother’s death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that it impacted his performance: “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.”[66] After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his use of Ritalin and Benzedrine.[67]