Monday, December 9, 2013
Why oh Why?
"Why Write a Math Blog" -- that was the title of a recent short post at Ken Abbott's blog, where he offered 3 reasons for his blogging:
http://www.math-math.com/2013/11/why-write-math-blog.html
His thoughts inspired me to think about my own reasons for math-blogging, since my sparse (academic) math background makes it an even more interesting question for me… and my reasons overlap, but differ a bit, from Ken's.
Indeed, when friends have asked, in a surprised tone, "why" do I math blog my first reaction is to explain that while I write ABOUT math, I don't actually DO much mathematics on the blog. I'm more interested in the topic of math and mathematicians than in the working out of math, for which I have limited competency.
So reasons for math-blogging here at Math-Frolic are:
1) This blog was born with the demise of Martin Gardner back in June 2010 -- I was doing a small science blog at the time, but Gardner's death brought back memories of the hours of enjoyment I got from his work, and I decided to begin anew with a blog focusing on math in his honor. (expecting it to be short-lived, but over time it grew, as to my naive amazement there seemed to be never-ending material to draw from.)
2) I like trying to make math interesting to others.
3) I enjoy curating information, and writing.
4) In the process of doing the blog I get to learn a great deal myself.
5) And best of all, mathematicians are among the most interesting people in the world to me, and the blog puts me in contact with people I would otherwise never have had the pleasure of crossing paths with!
So HOORAY to the world of math-blogging! (I'm sure other math-bloggers have their own reasons for blogging, sometimes different from the above -- feel free to chime in with your own motivations/rewards in the comments).
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1 comment:
I much agree with you. I started my blog explicitly devoted to mathematics (I am blogging since 2001, but my main blog is, well, an all-purposes blog) because I think that people should have the possibility to know what math is really about. At school - at least in Italy but I think it happens elsewhere too - you learn a series of recipes, but you can't see the bigger picture. Like you, I don't do mathematics: I talk about mathematics.
(and you are lucky, because you may have a far larger public since you write in English. In Italy there is just a dozen or so of math-related blogs...)
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