aleph's profile

Info

Name: Robert
Joined: November 23, 2011

Contributions

MeFi: 53 posts , 608 comments
MetaTalk: 0 posts , 1 comment
Ask MeFi: 0 questions , 5 answers
Music: 0 posts , 0 comments, 0 playlists
Music Talk: 0 posts, 0 comments
Projects: 0 posts, 0 comments, 0 votes
Jobs: 0 posts
IRL: 0 posts, 13 comments
FanFare: 0 posts, 0 comments
FanFare Talk: 0 posts, 0 comments

View all activity

Favorites: 1106
Favorited by others: 2271

I help fund MetaFilter!

Social

Links to: 7 users
Linked by: 6 users
MeFi tags: astronomy (3) DNA (3) Blackhole (2) economics (2) MIT (2) bacteria (1) autoimmune (1) astrophysics (1) ARM (1) antibiotic (1)

About

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

I'm an older person. Been online since dial-up times though I can't say I've spent that much time online as most of the interaction tends to be superficial. Not all.

Got a couple of Bachelor degrees, Math and Electrical Engineering. Getting a couple more (Computer Science and Physics) shortly. Another one in Biology/Chemistry I stopped in my senior year and enlisted in the Marines.

The nickname is fairly new. Usually went with some version of first name last initial or the reverse but a recent group wanted "handles" so I picked that one from Aleph Null (or Aleph Zero) the first level of infinite sets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number

Then I thought that was too long so I just went with aleph.

I like the first level (the size of the Integers) because of Kronecker's remark:

"God made the integers, the rest is the work of man." You can tell something about my warped sense of humor in that I thought that was funny though I'm sure he didn't mean it to be.