About me

I’m a 34 year old guy living and working in Sydney with my partner and our cat (who appears in the header of this blog). I moved down here from Brisbane in 2000 with my partner to follow my PhD supervisor to the University of Sydney and I came to love living here. In April 2005 I submitted my PhD in pure mathematics (and graduated in May 2006) and have been working part-time since January 2005 for a private, non-profit education company helping to develop mathematics tests for primary and secondary school kids and adults. I’ve learnt a lot while doing this work but my interests are much broader.

This blog records some of my interests and thoughts - mostly it records ideas or events that struck me strongly enough at some point in time that I wanted to write about them. One ongoing interest of mine is in politics - I’ve been interested in politics since a teenager and if I had to use broad categorisations, I’d say I was socially liberal and economically centrist. I probably lean towards realism in international relations, especially since idealism, or more correctly, the incompetence of certain idealists, has recently so spectacularly failed (eg consider the Bush administration’s approach to Iraq). Phrases such as “axis of evil” leave me cold. In general, I’m in favour of evidence-based public policy.

My interest in politics is a hobby, although it may become more important in the future. I soak up newspapers like a sponge and enjoy reading about current events in The Economist and other magazines. Springing forth from this interest bloomed a major in government/politics in my Arts degree at Queensland Uni along with a double major in mathematics, which has been the focus of my career for many years. I went on to obtain a first class honours degree in Applied Mathematics at the University of Qld, with major studies in dynamical systems and graph theory. I’ve been interested in mathematics and the natural sciences for a long time, and was particularly entranced with the idea that one could use pure mathematics to understand the world (eg in theoretical physics). Areas such as knot theory intrigued me, and still do - there’s something amazing and possibly inherently-not-understandable in the question of how it is that mathematics is somehow embedded in physical reality. I try to understand this by thinking that mathematics reflects aspects of physical reality, eg, it’s plausible that people created positive integers to reflect numbers of objects. Perhaps this, combined with logic (which to my mind seems to reflect people’s observations on the world) allows us to create abstract structures that can be used to understand the world. I don’t know - while some might call it “the great unknowable” (as I think the character Sax in the Mars trilogy did), I think that one can indeed ask questions about it.

Along with my long-term interests in mathematics and science, I have become interested in economics and finance in the last few years - understanding these subjects is essential for anyone interested in decreasing poverty and thinking that it would be great for people to have as many opportunities to succeed in life as possible. Similarly, I think that everyone seriously interested in politics should attempt to properly understand these subjects. At the moment I’m reading a textbook on international economics and business, which is very interesting. I’m considering doing a postgraduate course in economics for personal interest and career reasons.

I’m molding a career around my interests - the journey from a doctorate in pure mathematics to a money-earning office job was interesting and I’ve learnt a lot on the way (eg the aspects of work that make me (un)happy and how people behave in organisations) - and now I’m thinking about expanding my work to align moreso with my interests.

I’d be happy to live and work in many places around the world and I’d love to work overseas - it’s great to have new experiences and challenges - I love visiting new cities and countries.

Other interests include understanding the Earth system and environmental matters, and applying mathematical techniques to issues in society.

I’m still interested in and doing research in mathematics (eg I referee papers for journals). It’s fun. Not sure about winning the Clay Institute prizes (hehe), but you never know!

That’s enough about me for the moment!

(Last edited Tuesday 1st may, 2007)