Editing Paul Erdős (section)

=== Pharmacology, Regulation, and Mental Health ===
Erdős famously consumed amphetamines to maintain wakefulness during long periods of problem-solving. He once went '''over 30 hours straight''', working continuously, and considered “wasting time” a sin against the mathematical gods.

His avoidance of sleep, diet irregularity, and resistance to rest were driven not by addiction, but by '''cognitive urgency'''—a need to stay immersed in formal patterns lest they disappear. When challenged about his use of stimulants, he stopped cold-turkey for 30 days, then declared: “Mathematics has been set back by a month.”

This shows the '''internal regulatory logic''' typical of autistics: not bound by social conventions, but by '''self-defined rules of efficacy'''.
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