New Authors - Introductions and Suggestions

[Jamie Sawyer]

Hi, I'm Jamie Sawyer, a 3rd year Mathematician at Warwick University, UK, with particular interests in Dynamics, especially Complex Dynamics and Julia Sets at the moment.

I've set up this thread for new authors (like myself) to introduce themselves and to (hopefully!) get some general guidance regarding what work would be most appreciated by the Workgroup as a whole.

For example, I would personally love to start at least a stub on Complex Dynamics, Böttcher's Theorem, External Rays and the like, but I feel that my time would probably be better spent looking over some of the most popular entries from Planet Math - Cauchy-Schwartz Inequality, Matrix Inverse, Metric Space, that sort of thing.  So, my question to the Editors/Regular Contributors is which tack would be more useful on the whole?  Perhaps focus on the Planet Math popular entries for the time being, then as CZ grows begin to put in some of the complicated areas?

Regardless, new members introduce yourselves, and older members please give us a hand!

Jamie Sawyer
http://mathmo.blogspot.com/

[Fredrik Johansson]

Hi, Jamie.

For work relevant to your interests: how about the "Fractal" article? The Citizendium article is currently just a copy of the (rather poor) Wikipedia article and should probably be rewritten from scratch. Or maybe an article on the Mandelbrot set? Fractals are a very popular topic that offers a great opportunity to write math articles that are accessible to non-mathematicians.

Seeing "matrix inverse" in that list, my first thought otherwise is that we need a solid introductory article on linear algebra.

[Jitse Niesen]

I think it is an excellent idea to have everybody introduce themselves. My name is Jitse Niesen, I'm Dutch and I'm now a postdoc at La Trobe University in Melbourne. After doing the one obligatory course on Numerical Analysis during my undergraduate, I decided to avoid all the other Numerical Analysis courses. It's not that easy, however, to escape from your fate, and I ended up doing a PhD in the numerical solution of ODEs. That's still the area I'm working in. I tend to know a bit in nearby areas like linear algebra, (continuous-time) dynamical systems, real, complex and functional analysis, and differential geometry, and less from the purer areas.

Ideally, we should be writing about topics that we want to write about, we can write about, and many others want to read about. Elementary (say, A-level = high school or first-year university) topics are usually read by many. Articles about a field (e.g., dynamical systems) are hard to write, but of course the reward is bigger if you manage. Fractals is an excellent suggestion. However, you might find that tough going (I know that I would have a hard time deciding on an outline), in which case it may be easier to take a concrete example, like the Julia set or the Mandelbrot set. The Feigenbaum cascade is another topic that many will look up. The topics you mention may not be read by so many, but they are definitely suitable. Personally, I'm most interested by external rays.

In fact, it's probably best to suggest that you choose a topic that you really want to write about for your first article. Once you're hooked, we'll let you do the rest ;-)  Enjoy!

[a.a.s.]

Hi Jamie,

Nice to meet you. I do agree that Fractal article is quite poor and should  be almost completely rewritten. But due to the large scope I left it for a while. (BTW, Did you know that B. Mandelbrot is about  writing such article on Scholarpedia?) Personally, I prefer smaller topics with better defined scope. But on wiki nothing can stop you if you decide to rewrite e.g. Mathematics article from scratch

Alex

PS. certainly, you wil be at CODY in June ? If so, there are non-zero chances we'll meet (not sure, though).

[gerg]

Hi, I'm http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Greg_Martin. 

Jamie, it's good to factor in (at some level) what articles you think our vast viewing public will most want to see. But I've found that the most important criterion is what articles you yourself are eager to work on! If you "assign" yourself an article and end up dreading your computer until it's done, that's no good.

If you're equally eager about every possible mathematics topic then probably more general (accessible) articles are better than very specific ones. But CZ will have it all eventually, so be bold and work on your favorites!

[Ed Poor]

Hi, I'm Ed Poor. I've been at Wikipedia a long time and inspired (or "instigated") the ParserFunctions work of Tim Starling. My [[Template:Age]] is in use in thousands of articles there.

I'm good at high school math (scored 760 on the college boards around 30 years ago). My favorite is algebra, but I know a bit of geometry, trig and (used to know) calculus.

I'm especially interested in probability and statistics and graphs and logic, and how these relate to scientific subjects like astronomy and the environment.

[hendrai]

Hello everyone,

I joined Citizendium yesterday and got to know Aleksander who helped me get started, and now I wish to introduce myself and say a big warm "Hi!" to everybody. My name is Hendra and I was originally trained as an electrical engineer, but my interest has always been focused on the subdiscipline of control engineering and systems theory. Though I am not a mathematician per se, mathematics is however an indispensible tool in a control engineer's toolbox. More information about me is available at my user page. At CZ I hope to be able to help contribute some articles in (control) engineering and (applied) mathematics.

So, I look forward to interacting with everyone in the future. Thanks.

Best wishes,

Hendra

[Trenton Cronhoolm]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Trenton_Cronholm, this link should cover the basics

Hi Jitse, Mathmo, Ed, and everyone else I don't know (I think Michael Hardy and Oleg are around as well.)*  What is the state of the project here at CZ? I noticed that CZ doesn't have a Calculus/Analysis article yet, did I miss something? Anyway, I guess I will see everyone around the project. Cheers
Trenton Cronholm

*This comment directed at former WP:M editors