Math Is Fun Forum

It's become a tradition of mine to post this in the introductions forum or thread whenever I join a new place, so I'll get it out of the way now:

“I am Daniel, Newman, Abbet. I am the rescuer of damsels-in-distress, jack-of-all-trades, wanderer of worlds, servant of none, I am he that axed the Beast of Gorgablania and rescued the lost princess of that land from certain death at the hands of the foul sorcerer Mermelak, I am he who could describe his deeds forever, and will, I am he that was gifted with the Ring of Truth by the king of Zorblabia for defeating his rival through means of an epic wrestling match, I am he who is armoured in light and he who wields darkness as a weapon, I am he that wandered the lands when they were young and will still wander them when they are old, I am he that struck down the foul tempered undying paragonic-half-feind-draconic-leprechaun-vampire-zombie-karagh-reaper-devil-monkey-lich-taur-thing of the Malmagur Mountains and ate the fey queen of the fell fairies, I am he that learned the ways of the good hero and the evil villain, the honourable knight and the unscrupulous thief, the scoundrel and the gentleman, the lord and the servant, the mage and the warrior, the monk and the cleric, the god and the foulest of men, all from those who knew the ways best, I am he that knows all things and reveals no secrets, I can settle any argument and start any fight, I can end any war and instigate any conflict, I can soar through the skies or flow through the water or meld with the shadows or bore through the stone or slip through the light, I am he that can solve any puzzle, crack any code, learn any secret, unravel any mystery, I am he that observes the rules of grammar at all times except when speaking of my accomplishments, I am he that can recite pi to its final figure and calculate any problem, I am the King of darkness, to whom Satan is but prince, and the lord of the heavens, whom Zeus  cowers before, I am he that has wooed a thousand women and fathered two hundred sons, I am he that runs with the animals and walks with the men and dances with the elves and stomps with the dwarves and crawls with the goblins and waddles with the halflings and wanders with the kender and flies with the dragons and charges with the orcs and swims with the fish and stampedes with the ogres and tramples with the giants and sneaks with the drow and jaunts with the phase-spiders and plays with the fairies and hunts with the minotaurs and howls with the wolves and studies with the Illithid and soar with the eagles and stalks with the predators, I am he that can sing any song and play any instrument, I am he that can strike faster as the biting snake, I am he who studied the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools I employ, and I know many things. I know the Fourteen words to make someone fall in love with you forever, the seven words to make them go without pain, how to say goodbye to a friend who is dying, how to be poor, how to be rich, how to rediscover dreams when the world has stolen them from you." I am he that can read any book and quote any passage, I am he that can unlock any lock, I am he that can take any life and save any life, I am he who has seen the birth of stars and the death of galaxies, I am the beginning of eternity and the end of time and space, I am the beginning of every end and the end of every race, I am the scream of terror, the moan of passion, the laugh of joy, the tear of sorrow, and the shout of triumph, I am the living incarnation of karma good and bad, I am he that shattered the ancient life destroying ring world, I am he that has saved mankind on ninety two separate occasions and destroyed it four times, I am he that mastered the art the short sword and the naughty sword and the long sword and the two-handed sword and the great sword and the energy sword and the two-bladed sword and the claymore and the fist and the open hand and the empty palm and the seeking elbow and the way of the twelve explosive points and the spear and the trident and the buckler and the bow and the whip and the mace and the hammer and the ulak and the scimitar and the katana and the wakizashi and the tanto and the sack full cats and the half-brick in a sock and the flail and the dire flail and the mancatcher and the scissor sword and the sap and the brass knuckles and the club and the greatclub and the morning star and the staff and the halberd and the glaive and the spiked chain and the kukri and the kama and the chameleon and the gauntlet  and of course the crowbar, as well as the pistol, shotgun, rifle, RPG, BOOM-stick, hand cannon, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, BFG10K, railgun, plasma Rifle, needler, grenade, plasma pistol, flash-bang, rubber band, catapult and crossbow, as well as any combination of them at once, I am he who has witnessed the death of galaxies and the birth of stars, and caused the both on multiple occasions, I am he that has led one thousand armies and conquered a million more, I am he that can give any order and be given none, I am the end and the beginning, I am he who has watched every movie and listened to every song, I am he who travelled to saint Ives and met a man with seven wives, I am all that you fear and everything you love, I am he that visited the most silent of all places and deafened the listening monks with my thoughts, I am he who never stops talking and never ceases his silence, I am he that feet yo momma, I am he who cannot be defeated unless I wish it, and he who doesn’t wish to be defeated, I am he who has probably started to repeat himself by now."

That said, I'm 15 years old, live in Devon, England, and (unsurprisingly seeing as I've found my way here) I love maths!

I've always enjoyed and been fairly good at maths, and I've won a few small prizes in maths challenges and so on within my school, but I only got into maths as a hobby (and a passion!) about a year ago, when I started applying it to another Hobby - Dungeons and Dragons. For those of you not familiar, D&D is a fantasy game, played with dice (many of which have an alarming number of sides), which contains all the Demons, Dragons, Magic and Mayhem that is inherent to a fantasy setting.

The game combines roleplay, character development and social interaction with tactics, statistics and numberplay. Although amateur dramatics are fun, I'm better at writing formulas than plays so I quickly turned to the latter part of the combination. Working within a set of rules to build a character more powerful than your opponents. As of today, I remain undefeated – although this is owed in part to the fact that I've never entered any really professional tournaments, and stick to playing against my friends (most of whom have given up and declared playing against me in a “numbers only” game to not be fun anymore).

Eventually, I found that I enjoyed the mathematics regardless of the game - After I'd pushed the amount of power achievable to the maximum I deemed possible within the rules, I would save a copy for use in the match and then remove the restrictions - just let myself continue on with the sky as the limit.

Aside from Maths and D&D, my hobbies are Diabolo, Reading (Terry Prattchett, Douglas Adams, Robert Rankin, David Wong, Jay Pinkerton, and anything that makes me think), Movies (Quentin Tarrintino, Guy Ritchie, and anything with Batman), And the internet in general. I'm also interested in philosophy and I seem to collect religions - Currently, I'm a Strongly Karmic Pagan Dicing Atheistic Secular Humanist (Interpretive LeVayen)Satanistic Flying Spaghetti Monsteristic(aka pastafarian) Technological-Transcendionistic Ramadanian Fictionist, tending towards Unitarian Universalism and Nontheism.

I found this site when I googled “maths” out of boredom a little while ago.