I am currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Florence, Italy, studying Methodology of the Social Sciences. (My dissertation deals with the use of propositional logic to test hypotheses and produce new ones based on limited data-sets.) My first degree was in Philosophy, which was followed by a Masters in Methods of Software development. I then moved to Italy, where I taught English as a Second Language in various language schools for a short while, before obtaining a research grant in the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Urbino.

I have an interest in recreational mathematics, which I pursue as an occasional hobby (when time is available and the mood takes me). I am particularly interested in prime numbers, and in the search for factors of large composite numbers - particularly Mersenne numbers. I also enjoy trigonometry, calculus, number series and modular arithmetic, although I can't claim to be an expert in any of these.

Recently, I have been working on the logistic equation and logistic map, trying to discover and describe the entirely deterministic nature underlying the apparently chaotic behaviour. (I have never been comfortable with the use of the term 'chaos' in mathematics, as it suggests a lack of order, which is, as far as I know, simply never the case. Indeed, I know of no branch of mathematics that is non-deterministic. A lack of long-term predictability should not be regarded as a lack of order.)