Professionals, Students, Amateurs and Hobbyists (Was: Primes post)

[Olivier Gerard]

Dear Seqfan Members,

I take the occasion of Creighton Dement's post to 
recall that the spirit of this mailing list is to
be a resource for all people genuinely interested
in integer sequences and their scientific aspects
(this is not limited to mathematics as many sequences
have relations to investigations in physics, chemistry
and biology), and whatever their age, profession, academic
background and credentials, mother tongue, mental
computation skills, erdös number, number of theorems
proved, number of sequences authored, etc.

I hope more knowledgeable members are happy to
transmit their experience to others and that many like to
read answers to questions they did not dare or
thought to ask.

The basics are always the same:

- quote previous messages sparingly !
- avoid long tables of data or long lists of sequences
  as posts (you are of course free to put them online elsewhere)
- try to keep a moderate pace of exchange (there is no rush:
  integers will still be there next week, even next century,
  we are not in a competition, no prize is awarded for the
  fastest "me too !")
- re-check numbers, notations, facts, sequence numbers, etc.
- always ponder whether you should reply off-list instead of to the list.
- re-read yourself one more time before pressing the "Send" button
  (or the "Send" key)

Please do not comment on this message on the list.
I welcome direct replies to me, though.


Olivier
Seqfan List administrator


Le 19, Creighton Dement écrivait:
> 
> On another note: 
> I have never heard anyone complain directly to me that I post too much
> about the floretions (apparently, some of you are very patient). 
> 
The traffic has been raising steadily during last year on seqfan
so my advice is to try to be synthetic. If you feel you need to
write at great length and detail on your subject of interest, 
please do so but for instance on your website, and then post
a short note summarizing briefly your new results or your new sequences
on the mailing list itself, giving references and url. 
Besides helping members keeping up with their mail, it will
have the added benefit of making you approach your own material in
another useful way.

> That got me to thinking... I toot my own horn too much. Most of you
> probably work in research departments where you come into contact with
> many other mathematicians during the day. 
> That leads me to ask many questions that others probably wouldn't ask. 
> Therefore, I apologize if I've gotten on anyones nerves. 
> 
By principle, asking questions is Ok. It is one of the main way
to learn anything.  In practice,  the purpose of this list is
certainly not to be an online tutorial forum for number theory
and allied subjects.

There are many resources you can use to try to find the answer
by yourself before asking. And doing so will help you
	- formulate more precisely your questions
	- understand better the answers you might get on this list,
So it is good form to try first the usual suspects and try
to work by yourself:  google, mathworld.wolfram.com, wikipedia,
...

The kind of questions you have asked so far let me think that you
could have interest, now that you have your own lines of research,
in studying one of the classical references in number theory and
combinatorics to establish a cultural background in those areas.
It will also help you put the kind of objects you investigate in
perspective with the quite powerful theories already developed.

I would advise among others "Concrete Mathematics  (2nd Edition)"
by Graham, Knuth and Patashnik, Addison Wesley.  There is a lot
of material on recurrences, generating functions and classical 
integer sequences that you could enjoy. The style is not formal.
This is the kind of books you can read and read again all your life.