User:Gandalf61

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Introduction
I very much welcome comments on any of my contributions (naming, format, style, contents, usefulness etc etc) - post a message at User_talk:Gandalf61.

As for myself ... I am British so I enjoy :
 * The outstanding comedy of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers
 * The animation of Nick Park
 * Singing along with Flanders & Swann
 * Eating Marmite on toast
 * Drinking dandelion and burdock and warm beer (but not both at the same time)
 * ... and playing Diplomacy,  Risk and, of course, Mornington Crescent

Articles
Articles that I have started or made a substantial contribution to include :

2003

 * Abstract structure - a gap that needed filling because there was a link to it from the mathematics page
 * Proof by exhaustion - an important method of mathematical proof that has some controversial applications
 * Constructive proof - a complement to the nonconstructive proof article, and completes a link from mathematical proof
 * Generating function - replaced a redirect to formal power series with an article on different types of generating functions and their uses
 * Farey sequence - just couldn't resist filling out the previous stub
 * Ford circle - a natural link from Farey sequence
 * Kepler conjecture - a fascinating problem, and an example of proof by exhaustion
 * Sphere packing - a requested article that provides context for the Kepler conjecture
 * Mathematics as a language - completes a link from mathematical proof
 * Flanders and Swann - expanded previous stub
 * Polydivisible number - an intriguing backwater in recreational mathematics
 * Octave Chanute - American railroad engineer and aviation pioneer
 * Coniston Water - scene of Donald Campbell's death in 1967

2004

 * Abstraction (mathematics) - link from abstract structure
 * Riemann hypothesis - added history section
 * St. Elsewhere - new article
 * Modular group - expanded existing article
 * Fractal - added history section
 * Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture - added background section and expanded rest of article
 * Julia set - amended general definition of Julia set
 * Fatou set - new article, link from Julia set
 * Lucas sequence - new article, link from Fibonacci pseudoprime
 * Disquisitiones Arithmeticae - new article, link from Carl Friedrich Gauss and number theory
 * Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie - new article, link from number theory
 * Mathematical beauty - re-write of existing article
 * Mathematics and art - split out from mathematical beauty
 * How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension - new article, link from fractal
 * Voronoi diagram - added history section
 * Project Excelsior - new article, link from Joseph Kittinger
 * Pendine Sands - new article, written because I went there on holiday
 * K'nex - expanded previous stub
 * Rare Earth hypothesis - made existing article less rhetorical, more NPOV
 * Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life - new article, book by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart
 * Moving average (finance) - a family of common technical analysis techniques that deserved their own article
 * Lyapunov fractal - expanded previous stub
 * Apollonian gasket - new article on a very beautiful fractal
 * Benoît Mandelbrot - expanded existing article
 * Lévy C curve - new article, link from fractal
 * Lévy flight - expanded previous stub
 * Lévy's constant - new article
 * Paul Pierre Lévy - expanded previous stub
 * Ruth Lawrence - expanded previous stub
 * Notes & Queries - new article celebrating 15th anniversary of column in The Guardian

2005

 * Zeckendorf's theorem - new article, referenced in Fibonacci number
 * Edouard Zeckendorf - new article
 * Mathematics education - re-wrote and expanded previous stub
 * A Mathematician's Apology - expanded previous stub
 * Hans von Mangoldt - new article
 * von Mangoldt function - example of an arithmetic function that is neither multiplicative nor additive
 * Padovan sequence - new article
 * Plastic number - re-wrote previous stub
 * Dyadic transformation - re-wrote previous stub
 * Tent map - expanded and re-wrote previous stub. Tent map exhibits a wide range of dynamic behaviours in a fairly simple context.
 * Poincaré-Bendixson theorem - new article
 * List of Cambridge mathematicians - extended previous stub list

2006

 * Carmichael's theorem - replaced redirect
 * Midy's theorem - new article
 * p-adic number - re-wrote Introduction section and added references
 * trimorphic number - new article, extends concept of automorphic number
 * henagon and digon - expanded previous stubs
 * ideal triangle - new article, linked from hyperbolic triangle
 * A. Cohn's irreducibility criterion - expanded previous stub
 * Anderton Boat Lift - expanded previous stub; added diagrams
 * Regular Polytopes (book) - new article

2007

 * Indra's Pearls (book) - new article
 * Graphical timeline of the Big Bang - made timeline consistent with times given in the individual early universe epoch articles, and wrote new article on the quark epoch
 * Multiplicative group of integers modulo n - added examples
 * Eulerian number - replaced incorrect redirect with new article
 * Peter Harrison Planetarium - expanded previous stub
 * Hofstadter sequence - new article
 * Integer relation algorithm - new article
 * Euclid's orchard - new article
 * Experimental mathematics - rewrote and expanded previous stub

2008

 * Encyclopedia of Triangle Centers - new article
 * Coxeter's loxodromic sequence of tangent circles - new article
 * Cocker's Arithmetick - new article
 * Superperfect number - new article
 * Timeline of the future in forecasts - expanded and improved article when nominated for deletion
 * 65536 (number) - expanded and improved article when nominated for deletion
 * Lochs' theorem - new article
 * Juggler sequence - new article
 * From Here to Infinity (book) - new article, because I was re-reading it and noticed we did not have an article
 * Jeep problem - expanded stub
 * Baum-Sweet sequence - new article
 * Rudin-Shapiro sequence - new article
 * Regular paperfolding sequence - new article

2009

 * Fermat quotient - new article
 * Locally catenative sequence - new article, linked from L-system
 * Church of Saint Leonard, Bengeo - expanded, added more images
 * Final stellation of the icosahedron - brought to good article standard
 * Penrose tiling - brought to good article standard

2010

 * Primitive abundant number - new article
 * Durfee square - new article

2011

 * The Quantum Universe - new article

2012

 * Monsky's theorem - new article

2019

 * van Eck's sequence - new article

Things I Have Learned From Wikipedia
To help me remember why I contribute to Wikipedia, this is a list (in no particular order) of things that I did not know until I read about them here.
 * A concrete canoe can resurface even after it is submerged.
 * The unknown soldier is not always unknown.
 * The Perpetual virginity of Mary is a doctrine of the Catholic Church.
 * The 3D equivalent of a Koch snowflake fills a cube.
 * Pica is a unit of measure in typography; the genus of the magpie; and the medical term for an appetite for non-foods.
 * An unpopped popcorn kernel is known as an "old maid".
 * The M96 motorway is not open to the public, but has appeared in a television documentary.
 * The Triangulum Galaxy is probably the furtherest object visible with the naked eye. It is about 400,000 light years further away than the Andromeda Galaxy.
 * A square wheel can give a smooth ride on a bumpy road.
 * Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, read mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated with honours.
 * The gravitational sphere of influence of one body that is in orbit around another larger body is known as its Hill sphere.
 * In addition to Charon, Pluto has at least four other moons (Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx).
 * A crime commited by an astronaut on the International Space Station would fall under the jurisdiction of the home country of the alleged perpetrator.
 * Salvador Dali's last painting, The Swallow's Tail, is about catastrophe theory.
 * The Danjon scale is used to measure the visbility of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse.
 * In medieval Europe, the barnacle goose was believed to be born from a barnacle. This allowed Catholics to eat it during Lent, as it was classified as a fish.
 * Ingesting silver or silver compounds can turn your skin blue - a condition known as argyria.
 * Mountbatten pink, used as naval camouflage paint by Louis Mountbatten in World War II, is a mixture of medium gray with a small amount of Venetian red.
 * The inventor of mass-produced instant coffee was called George Washington.
 * Harriet Quimby, the first woman to earn a US pilot's certificate, became the first woman to fly across the English Channel less than a year later.
 * A desire line is a path created by people repeatedly taking the same route across an open space such as a field or lawn.
 * Bulwarks built around the piers of a bridge to ease the flow of water and reduce erosion are called starlings.
 * Bismuth and silicon each has the unusual property that its liquid phase is denser than its solid phase (like water).
 * Keraunomedicine is the medical study of lightning casualties; keraunos is Greek for "thunder" or "thunderbolt".
 * In her 2005 album Aerial, Kate Bush sings the first 137 digits of the decimal expansion of π (omitting digits 79 to 100).
 * The study of flags is called vexillology, from vexillum, a type of flag carried by Roman legions.
 * Despite having a very similar diet to cows, kangaroos produce virtually no methane from digestion.
 * Cummingtonite, named after Cummington, Massachusetts, is a mineral composed of magnesium iron silicate hydroxide.
 * The Boomerang Nebula has a temperature of 1K (i.e. colder than the CMB) and is the coldest known natural environment.
 * September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
 * Bicycle Day (April 19th, 1943) is the day when Dr Albert Hofmann first intentionally ingested LSD in a self-experiment.
 * The Toast of Botswana is a naturally-occuring sheep-goat hybrid.
 * In American slang, "going postal" means "to suddenly become extremely and uncontrollably angry, possibly to the point of violence".
 * Charles Osborne hiccupped continuously for 68 years, from 1922 to 1990.
 * The Feynman Point is the sequence of six 9s which begins at the 762nd decimal place of π.
 * Stigler's law of eponymy states that "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer". Stephen Stigler first published the law, but attributed its discovery to Robert K. Merton.
 * The highest unclimbed mountain in the world is Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan. At present, mountaineering is prohibited in Bhutan.
 * In 1907 Dr. Duncan MacDougall weighed six of his patients while they were dying in order to determine the weight of the human soul, which he estimated to be 21 grams.
 * A spite house is an American term for an often impractical building constructed to annoy or aggravate the owner of a neighbouring property.
 * February had 30 days in 1712 in Sweden, when two leap days were introduced to re-align the Swedish calendar with the Julian calendar. Sweden did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1753.
 * Exoteric is the opposite of esoteric - so public or common knowledge is exoteric knowledge.
 * The word coach comes from the Hungarian village of Kocs, where steel-sprung horse-drawn carriages were first built in the 15th century.
 * A trompe is a water-powered air compressor commonly used before electric-powered compressors became available.
 * Dr. William Moulton Marston, inventor of the polygraph, also created Wonder Woman.
 * Velology is the study and collection of vehicle licence discs.
 * The Kingdom of Lovely is a partly Internet-based micronation founded by comedy writer Danny Wallace.
 * The cubewano 58534 Logos has a satellite called Zoe, which is the only non-asteroid body in the Solar System whose name begins with the letter Z.
 * A cephalophore (from the Greek for "head-carrier") is a saint depicted carrying their head in their hands, signifying that they were martyred by beheading.
 * At its peak, Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, occupied a larger area than Paris - 120 km2 v. 105 km2.
 * A cordwainer makes shoes - a cobbler, strictly speaking, only mends shoes.
 * The place on Earth farthest from the Earth's centre is the summit of Chimborazo (or possibly the summit of Huascarán).
 * The "paragraph sign" ¶ is more formally called a pilcrow; the "division sign" ÷ is more formally called a obelus, which has the same Greek root as obelisk.
 * Writer Roald Dahl was named after polar explorer Roald Amundsen by his Norwegian parents.
 * According to John Lennon, the title of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds came from a drawing made by Lennon's young son Julian of his nursery school classmate Lucy Vodden.
 * March 0 is the last day of February.
 * Truck nuts are a uniquely American vehicle accessory.
 * Lobster Thermidor is named after the 11th month of the French Republican Calendar.
 * Shells fired by the Paris Gun in 1918 were the first man-made objects to enter the stratosphere.
 * Borborygmus is the medical term for stomach rumbling.
 * Troll and Tor are Norwegian Polar Institute research stations in Antarctica.
 * The Stout Scarab is an innovative US automobile manufactured in small numbers in the 1930s and considered by some to be the world's first production minivan.
 * St Piran's Day is the national day of Cornwall.
 * Anastrophe the natural word order inverts, a sentence more interesting to make.
 * Molinology is the study of miils and other water or wind powered mechanisms.
 * Tillamook Cheddar was an American canine artist named after a cheese.
 * The Local Bubble may have been blown by Geminga.
 * Petrichor (from the Greek petra + ichor) is the scientific term for the scent of rain on dry earth.
 * A rastrum is a five-pointed pen used to draw musical staves.
 * A hail cannon is an unlikely device that is supposed to prevent the formation of hailstones.
 * Before the publication of Charlotte Brontë's novel in 1849, Shirley was an uncommon - but distinctly male - name and would have been an unusual name for a woman.
 * There are two Floozies in the Jacuzzi; one in Birmingham, and one in Dublin.
 * Starbucks coffehouse chain was named after the first mate of the Pequod in Melville's Moby-Dick.
 * Philip K. Dick's middle name was Kindred.
 * A cinderella stamp is virtually anything resembling a postage stamp, but not issued for postal purposes by a government postal administration.
 * Mavis is a dialect name for the song thrush, but was first used as a woman's name in the 1895 novel The Sorrows of Satan.
 * The Kirkwood gaps are caused by Jupiter.
 * In meteorology virga (Latin: twig or branch) is precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates or sublimates before reaching the ground.
 * The Sacred Cod and the Holy Mackerel hang in the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
 * The notion that duct tape was originally "duck tape" made from cotton duck is probably an urban myth.
 * Ground rollers are a small family of non-migratory near-passerine birds restricted to Madagascar.
 * A hypernucleus contains at least one hyperon (a baryon carrying the strangeness quantum number) in addition to protons and neutrons.
 * "In like Flynn" is a slang phrase meaning "having quickly or easily achieved a goal". The eponymous Flynn may be actor Errol Flynn or American politician Edward J. Flynn.
 * Goldfish swallowing was a fad in American colleges in the 1930s.
 * Mount St. Helens was named after Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens. The title was named after the village of St Helens on the Ise of Wight.
 * Soylent is an off-white powder - and definitely not green.
 * Jimi Heselden, British millionaire and owner of Segway Inc., died as a result of falling off cliff while riding a Segway.
 * Ovaltine was originally called Ovomaltine but its name was shortened due to a misspelling in its British trademark application.
 * Dogfooding - when a company uses its own products in order to test them in real-life scenarios.
 * The saxophone is made of brass, but is a woodwind instrument, not a brass instrument.
 * Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 46 of the 50 states of the USA.
 * The NICO Clean Tobacco Card irradiated cigarettes to "enhance the smoking experience".
 * Mole Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated by chemists on 23rd October each year.
 * Anthimeria is using one part of speech as another part of speech. Verbification is a type of anthimeria - you can Wikipedia it.

To Do
Create/expand history sections in following articles : hyperbolic geometry, quadratic reciprocity, prime number theorem, Euler-Mascheroni constant ...

Write articles on world water speed record, Bluebird (car) and Bluebird (boat)