Outlet Needed

And so it begins... finally... I think... Oh, screw it.  We'll see how it goes!

Euler's Identity becomes Unity
when expressed with Tau

In the late 80's,  a young engineering student's love for mathematics came to an abrupt end, essentially destroyed during a course in linear algebra and differential equations by a professor disinterested in the actual teaching of the subject— droning on and on in an almost unintelligibly thick, monotone German accent with no care whatsoever whether those he taught could comprehend him, let alone the subject at hand.

Mathematics became no more than a tools in the engineer's arsenal.  It was a language of symbols that simply allowed one to construct best estimate models of the world around us.  Applying formulae correctly and making the correct calculations were all that was of importance.  Mathematics was... mundane.



Decades passed and suddenly I had children talking calculus, and I realized I didn't quite remember much of it.  And for some reason or another, I found that that truly bothered me.  So I began taking online courses and working on self guided study.

This all coincided with the discovery that I found philosophy fascinating, devouring all I could possibly learn on the subject as quickly as possible.  It was as if I was making up for lost time, having never before so much as read a single phrase from Plato, Spinoza, Wittgenstein... or any other great philosopher one might care to name.

And as anyone acquainted with these subjects might imagine, the combination of the two has had a profound and synergistic effect.  It is certainly no mystery to me now that Mathematics and Philosophy have had such a close relationship down through the millennia — and that often the most profound thinkers in one subject were so in the other as well.

Which brings us to the reason(s) I've created this blog...

I find that I have come to a place in the pursuit of my studies, that I often that find it difficult to focus upon much anything else of importance.  And that I therefore need an outlet — a journal of some sort, if only for my own benefit, as I plod along.

And while I could, perhaps, accomplish this in a less public way (making use of +Evernote comes to mind), I would much rather have the opportunity to engage in productive discussion and debate with others having interest in these fields, and otherwise share my thoughts, progress (or lack thereof), and anything else I find that I think might be of interest.

So while I am not a mathematician, nor a philosopher of mathematics, nor a historian of the subject — I am nonetheless a passionate enthusiast, shall we say, on all these fronts.  And I hope that you will find the content here thought provoking at the very least.