User:Cephas Borg

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A little bit about me

I'm a semi-retired self-taught polymath (with the caveat that I'm unfortunately almost innumerate in terms of higher-order maths), a lover of science, and an passionate student of nature.

My primary areas of expertise are in electronics design and fabrication, with some (31 years) programming experience. However, I'm also deeply conversant in physics, chemistry, biology, human neurology (particularly neuroanatomy and neuropharmacology, because of a physical disability I have, due to severe spinal damage and the ensuing neuropathic issues), practical mechanics, geology, history, geography, evolution, biblical textual criticism, and particularly astronomy - including cosmology, cosmogony, stellar evolution, thermodynamics, and the physics required.

I have an innate ability to read at more than 6-10 times the typical educated adult rate, and this is combined with a very much larger than average vocabulary and grammatical expertise. This makes it a lot of fun for me identifying and correcting WP entries. I'm also passionately involved with Project Gutenberg, and Distributed Proofreading in particular.

Unfortunately, my inability to comprehend higher-order mathematics (I can just barely integrate and differentiate, but it hurts my brain!) severely limits my understanding of the deepest underlying explanations for many of my most passionate interests (astronomy in particular). Celestial mechanics is an area I'd love to be able to participate in, and despite a very good understanding of the concepts, my poor mathematical skills make it extremely difficult to participate or calculate specifics.

I'm also very much aware that I have much to learn in almost every area of interest, and despite some unfortunately passionate (but poorly worded) discussions, I look forward to participating more and learning from the amazing community of editors here. Hopefully I can restrain (or at least, redirect) my passion and become a useful member here.

Thanks for looking through my elucidations! Cephas Borg (talk) 04:56, 4 November 2012 (UTC)