Summing up some more interesting esoterica seems like the right thing to do at the moment, so here’s that.

A reminder: every now and then I encounter a paper or a book or an article that grabs my interest but isn’t directly useful for anything. It might be about some niche sub-sub-subtopic I’ve never heard of, or it might talk about something old from a new angle, or it might just have a funny title. I put these things in my Interesting Esoterica collection on Mendeley.

In this post the titles are links to the original sources, and I try to add some interpretation or explanation of why I think each thing is interesting below the abstract.

Some things might not be freely available, or even available for a reasonable price. Sorry.

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I feel like it’s time to do another summary of my recent additions to the Interesting Esoterica collection.

A reminder of what it’s all about: every now and then I encounter a paper or a book or an article that grabs my interest but isn’t directly useful for anything. It might be about some niche sub-sub-subtopic I’ve never heard of, or it might talk about something old from a new angle, or it might just have a funny title. I put these things in my Interesting Esoterica collection on Mendeley.

In this post the titles are links to the original sources, and I try to add some interpretation or explanation of why I think each thing is interesting below the abstract.

Some things might not be freely available, or even available for a reasonable price. Sorry.

Read more…

I’m going to try collecting additions to my Interesting Esoterica collection in let’s-say-weekly posts. I’ll link to each item, maybe paste its abstract, and write a sentence or two about it. Let’s see if it catches on. I’m not sure if I’ll have the will to do this regularly. I’m in a bit of a getting-things-done mood today.

As this is the first one, and I’ve added loads of stuff in January, for this first post I’m using everything I’ve added since the New Year. Future posts shouldn’t be anywhere near as long.

I should explain what the Interesting Esoterica collection is about. Basically, it’s where I put interesting stuff that I find. Most of the entries are proper research papers, though quite often a funny title is enough to merit inclusion. I certainly don’t read or even understand everything that goes in. I reckon it’s a fairly even split between stuff that’s really fascinating maths and stuff that’s just… esoteric. It’s a bit like a research-level maths version of QI.

The titles are links to the original sources, and I’m trying to sprinkle explanatory links throughout the rest of the text.

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