Tom Brown
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I have 260 stories published in
22 collections on the site.
My stories have been read 303026 times
and 18 of my stories have been cherry picked.
374 of my 2,759 comments have been voted Great Feedback with a total of 375 votes

Apart from studies in the natural sciences I am interested in languages and literature in general as well as religion. Lately I have been writing more popular general interest essays and also trying for a bit of balance with mathematics and while keeping things understandable for most people.
I am South-African born and bred. At high school I excelled in science and mathematics competitions and completed two years of mechanical engineering with very good results. That didn't work out due to ill health. I have had permanent teaching positions at Unisa and Wits.
Graduating with an MSc under WK Bartoszek (Unisa 1997) and a PhD under N Sauer (Pretoria 2006) formal interests would be in abstract analysis: Markov operators and stochastic processes; vector valued Laplace transforms applied to semigroups and families of evolution equations (empathies). It has now been quite a while since I was academically active I don't have much published. The way things have developed was beyond my control and I am very isolated.
Favourite authors are Jules Verne, HG Wells and Jack London, Shakespeare and poets William Blake and Dylan Thomas. I like adventure, science fiction and fantasy movies my all time greatest are the Narnia stories and the Lord of the Rings.
The meal best enjoyed is a breakfast of bacon eggs on toast fried chips with fresh orange juice, and for supper an ox-tail stew. I like eating out romantic. For recreation nature hikes, camping and fishing, listening to good music and reading, classics mostly, and good movies. I love dogs my best one was a Maltese poodle Freddy. I love rain and lightning thunderstorms and rainbows. As well as writing and publishing here on Abctales.
I have begun to study mathematics and its applications again, and look forward to be involved in formal research and teaching.
God is in the details of the details. God is in the timing of the timing.
Teaching Mathematics
Posted on Mon, 13 Sep 2021
Teaching Mathematics is an art but often thankless and unfulfilling. When the student fares poorly it is always the teacher's fault but when he does well the student is champion. I have taught at every level from primary school up to post-...
Read full commentPosted in The Maths Teacher
It is always a very good thing
Posted on Thu, 09 Sep 2021
It is always a very good thing to be able to see something from the other person's point of view also. Few people can really. One should try and practice it, I mean in general, any good teacher should have this kind of ability. To understand each...
Read full commentPosted in A Winning Handshake
Terrible hey?
Posted on Sun, 29 Aug 2021
Terrible hey? And it is everyday reality. You capture the essence in just a few words.
Read full commentPosted in flotsam and jetsam
The buzz of scooters sounds familiar
Posted on Mon, 16 Aug 2021
The buzz of scooters sounds familiar, be home before curfew the better part of valour is discretion.
Good! Never been to Itally myself they say it can get very hot there.
Keep well, all the best! Tom Brown
Read full commentPosted in Naples: balcony overlooking Via Firenza
Great!
Posted on Mon, 09 Aug 2021
Great! Going for summer here too! And visiting again the happy places of your childhood it is past so quickly.
Must say it's a blessing to have such close cousins I've got dozens. One or two are very special. All of them are. Our parents...
Read full commentPosted in Time’s Travel
Excellent
Posted on Sun, 01 Aug 2021
Excellent. I also knew people who I later wished I spoke with that I could learn of them, but I did speak to the sandman for some times, on the beach. Wish I had spoken more with my father and my uncle and my grampa but as it is I had learnt a...
Read full commentPosted in The Not-So Green Man
Enjoyed, and your cover the portrait
Posted on Sat, 31 Jul 2021
Enjoyed, and your cover the portrait is stunning, briliant. Imagine you could paint like that.
Cheers! Tom
Posted in The wasp (an excerpt from the next Crowe investigation) 2021
Beautiful descriptions Marcia
Posted on Tue, 15 Jun 2021
Beautiful descriptions Marcia dramatic hey? Good. You clearly know something about geology. You appear certainly a very unique and interesting person. Cherries!
Keep at it I enjoy reading your work! Tom Brown
Read full commentPosted in stuff of life ip
“A finished piece of writing is distanced
Posted on Sat, 24 Jul 2021
“A finished piece of writing is distanced from its author’s heart”, yes very true Marcia and thank God. Maybe that is the reason for writing, especially poetry. Just let it go.
Your poem is really lovely and I don't even need my glasses!...
Read full commentPosted in “of a piece “
Peanut butter
Posted on Sat, 24 Jul 2021
Peanut butter. Black belt? No! Black Cat! Great advertisement. Nice picture, chocolate icing or black cat? By the way what is IKEA?
Keep well! Tom Brown
Posted in In IKEA, he dreams about the woman he loves
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