Mathematical Instruments: Gianluigi Filippelli

This post is part of the series Mathematical Instruments in which we introduce you to some of the math bloggers listed on our site. Today:

via Wikimedia Commons

Gianluigi Filippelli– dropsea

Apart from dropsea, any places like other blogs, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, etc. we can find you on?

I have a blog on Field of Science (Doc Madhattan)  and you can find me also on twitter (@ulaulaman) and Google+. I’m also on tumblr and sometimes I write for Lo Spazio Bianco, a web fun magazine about comics. And recently I started to try the Old Reader (profile)!

Would you tell us a little bit about yourself?  E.g., Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific) background?

I studied physics in Italy, my country, where I got a master degree (with a calculation of a cross section) and a PhD (with a work about theory of ray representations) in physics at the University of Calabria in Cosenza. About five years ago I moved to Milano in order to teach mathematics and physics as substitute and support teacher. Two years ago I started a collaboration with the committee that organizes the Italian edition of the International Astronomy Olympiad. In this case my work consists in the design and realization of the web support for Italian students, but in this period, ’cause a lack of funds, my collaboration is free and bound to my school commitments.

When and how did you first discover mathematical blogs?

During my first year as wikipedian: in search of a good source I found Matem@ticamente by Annarita Ruberto. A great discovery!

What is the story behind the name of your blog?

The first name of my blog was Goccia a goccia (dropwise), but after reading Dropsie Avenue, a graphic novel by Will Eisner, I immediately decided to celebrate this great book with my blog, so I opted for dropsea: in this way I can refer to Eisner’s book and to the popular saying a drop in the ocean.

When did you start blogging? Why did you start?

At the end of 2002. After the first edits on Wikipedia, I wanted a simple way to update my first web page and the blog seemed the suitable means. The first version of the blog (it was essentially a personal web log) was updated using a software installed on my computer, but after a couple of years I opened a new page on the server of my physics department using a tiddlywiki. Finally, at the end of 2007, I switched to blogger.

What do you write about?

My blog was started as a personal blog, so I continue to write about books and comics, but little by little I started to write about physics and mathematics as well. My scientific posts are about the story of physics and mathematics and sometimes about the latest news in research.

What wouldn’t have happened to you without the internet?

I cannot imagine my life without internet: probably I would not work for the Italian Astronomy Olympiad, but I really don’t know if would even be a teacher…

What does the internet need more of?

It is necessary that the better content emerges between the noise, and a site aggregator like mathblogging.org is one of the better tools needed for this purpose.

Mathematicians on the web have…

Mathematical knowledge, that is a very important tool to read our world.

Your daily web reading (mathematical or otherwise):

First of all my twitter’s timeline. After that I go to mathblogging.org and scienceseeker.org to read good sources about science. My other passion is comics, so I usually read the news directly on the site of the editors (Dc Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Idw…). And weekly I read the posts about my web-friends, like Peppe Liberti, Lucia Marino, Maurizio Codogno, Popinga, and obviously Annarita!

Other interesting blogs are in my blogroll and in my sharing items on Old Reader.

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