Friday 10 September 2010

Local Boy Makes Good


It's been a pretty good week for the math blogging ego. My hit counter has been (relative to previous months) spinning like the national debt counter; and then today I got a note from some folks who maintain a list of "the 25 best Math blogs for college students" saying they had my blog on their list.

After a minute of supreme ego.. "Well, of course you did!", and a minute of critical doubt.."How could anyone keep up with all the math blogs out there to know which were best, .... and by what criteria would you judge and....yada, yada, yada?"...

Finally I clicked on the link to the list, and grew more quiet as I read down the list...

Yikes!! Fields medal winner Timothy Gowers is on the list, and he only made number three!!!!

Peter Woit, who wrote "Not Even Wrong" about String Theory and stuff is on the list.

Dave Richeson, who is chair of the department of mathematics and computer science at Dickinson College, and wrote "Euler’s Gem: The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topology" (and is, in my mind, one of the best math expositors around) is on the list.

A group of eight bright kids from Berkley have a blog on the list....

A blog by the entire math dept at Nazereth College is on the list...

There's a blog on computational geometry that is even more perplexing than the one on string theory.....

And there is a high school teacher from a US military base in England..... oh wait, that's me.....

As the folks on Sesame Street used to sing, "One of these things is not like the others...."

So I spent a little while feeling very, very unworthy,.... but now.... now I think I'll go get a big cup of coffee and sit back in my comfy big chair and feel very, very smug for a little while... after all, it will probably take them at least a month to figure out what a mistake they've made..... meanwhile, just call me "Number 18 with a bullet"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I have your autograph??.... on a blank check....please... Congratulations, MathBoy.

Nona said...

Wow ... I am impressed. You know, people have always compared me favorably with you ... and I am flattered by the comparison. But somehow, I don't think the "smarts" filtered down to the baby sister in the family.