Today the Renaissance Mathematicus officially became a teenager, although I think it’s been one since it first emerged into the digital world thirteen years ago, snotty-nosed, stroppy, belligerent, argumentative, anti-authority, whilst at the same time oscillating between bursting with energy and sloth like behaviour. Did I mention self-opinionated and convinced it knows better than everybody else?
Thirteen is, in the Germanic languages, the first number with a compound name, three plus ten, eleven and twelve having single names. It is the sixth prime number and the second two-digit prime forming a twin prime with eleven, the first two digit prime.
In some countries, including the UK and the USA, thirteen is considered an unlucky number, with people going as far as to not having a thirteenth floor in a building or a room 13 in a hotel. This superstition has been given the wonderful name Triskaidekaphobia from the Ancient Greek treiskaídeka for thirteen and phóbos meaning fear. There are various attempts to explain the historical origins of this phobia but none of them can actually be substantiated. Friday 13th is considered particularly unlucky in these cultures and has the equally splendid name paraskevidekatriaphobia from the Greek Paraskevi for Friday, reiskaídeka for thirteen, and phóbos meaning fear. In the Gregorian calendar, Friday 13th occurs at least once every year and can occur up to three times. Although there is evidence of both Friday and thirteen being considered unlucky, the earliest reference to Friday 13th as unlucky is in the nineteenth century. Once again, the origin of the superstition is a mater of speculation.
One common occurrence of the number thirteen in the English language is the baker’s dozen. Whereas a dozen is a group of twelve, a baker’s dozen is a group of thirteen. The term dates back to the fifteenth century and refers to the habit of baker’s selling their wares in units of thirteen rather than twelve as the law required. As bakers could be fined for selling their wares underweight, it is thought that they included an extra item to avoid the risk of a fine.
As usual the Renaissance Mathematicus blog anniversary is an occasion for reflection, looking inward and questioning, a period of introspection. Why do I do this at all? What is my motivation? What do I hope to achieve?
I’ve actually been thinking about these questions for sometime now. I am a self-confessed music junkie, who has spent a large part of my life working as a very small cog in the music business, as a stagehand, club live sound man, jazz club manager and chief cook and bottle washer. I also possess an obscenely large album collection, which I relativise by pointing out that other music junkies I know have much larger collections. One of my favourite rock guitarists is Robert Fripp, the genius behind King Crimson. Fripp is very philosophical for a rock musician and one of his sayings is, “don’t become a professional musician unless you can’t do anything else.” This statement is of course ambiguous. It could mean, if you are physically or mentally incapable of doing anything else or on the other hand you are so obsessed that nothing else comes into question.
I prefer the second interpretation and it neatly sums up my relationship to history in general and the history of science in particular. I have been addicted to history for as long as I can remember, history in general, history of mathematics, history of science, history of food… What ever else I’ve done in my life, I’ve always studied history simply because. However, as I have revealed in the past, I am an AD(H)Dler and this means I tend to get easily distracted in my studies, research, and readings. Oh look, there’s another aspect I could follow up over there and isn’t this fact interesting, maybe I could find out something about that! This means I have in my life a strong tendency never to get anything finished, because there are always twenty other different pathways I want to go down first. Forcing myself to write a weekly blog post helps me to stay focused, to concentrate, and get at least one thing finished. When I’m not writing blog posts my mind still wanders off in twenty different directions at once, but that’s OK; that’s have I come up with new topics for blog posts.
All of the above basically covers the first two of my questions, why and motivation and there isn’t really any other explanation. This still leave the third question open; what do I hope to achieve? I don’t really have a general answer to this. I don’t actually think I want to achieve anything in particular. Initially, as I have said in the past, I wanted to teach myself to write, and I think I fulfilled that aim some time ago. I wrote my, The emergence of modern astronomy – a complex mosaic series to prove to myself that if I wrote in slices; I could write a book. Another aim that I think I successfully fulfilled. I might even get around to turning it into a proper book manuscript and trying to find a publisher this summer! The Renaissance Science series was just, you’ve written one long series, what could you write a second one about?
On the whole I try not to think about potential readers but to write just for myself. This is a safety mechanism to stop me putting myself under any sort of pressure, will I fill my readers expectations!? Of course, I’m happy that people do read my scribblings and some of them even appear to enjoy them. Truth be told, the actual number of people who regularly read this blog scares me somewhat, in particular the successful professional historians of science, who I know do so. Imposter syndrome, what moi? As I have been known to say on occasions, even my imposter syndrome has imposter syndrome. One very concrete thing that I have aimed to achieve with my scribblings since the day I started this blog, is to try and clear away at least some of the myths that plague the popular perception of the history of science. It’s a Sisyphus task but it helps to keep me motivated and focused.
Having mentioned my readers, I will close this anniversary post by saying I’m grateful for every person, who takes the time to read my weekly outpourings and I hope they gain something for the time taken. I’m also grateful to all those, who take the time to provide feedback, through comments: I thank all of you both readers and commentors and hope you stay on bord for the next twelve months.