Tom Brown

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I have 273 stories published in 24 collections on the site.
My stories have been read 391734 times and 18 of my stories have been cherry picked.
434 of my 3,018 comments have been voted Great Feedback with a total of 437 votes

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Tom Brown

Born South-African, I went to a dual medium primary school and Afrikaans high school, NG Church mostly and sunday school Methodist. At school achieved top positions in science and mathematics olympiads, after as well completing two years of engineering studies with very good results but I did not graduate, I had to stop due to mental health problems.

Graduating under WK Bartoszek at Unisa, MSc (1997) and Pretoria University, Niko Sauer PhD (2006), formal interests were to be in abstract analysis and broadly in applied mathematics. All of my qualifications were with honours.

I had permanent teaching positions at Unisa and at Wits, however since not having been academically active, and as such absent from formal academic research for very long now, years. Advanced study and research was in Markov operators and stochastic processes; vector valued Laplace transforms applied to semigroups and families of evolution equations (Empathies).
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Unfortunately I have had a history of medical treatment for psychiatric illness with diagnosis of a bipolar mood disorder.

It was very fortunate in that my condition responded very well to medicine it helps if you cooperate and comply, if not, you don't have much of a chance. Also I am totally abstinent from alcohol and other mood altering substances for great many years, it did not accord with my constitution at all. As a chain smoker I also managed to kick the habit, more than a decade smoke-free now, by the Grace of God.

I have always been able to function completely normal and independently in society my isolation was not because of my own doing it was due to circumstances, and has just been getting stricter I seem to have almost no contact outside, save only for AbcTales. My saving grace.

I am  totally isolated and financially barely getting by. 

Although I am still studying mathematics and applications, more popular accessible kind of work, while interested and looking forward to hopefully be active in research or industry again.

God is in the details of the details. God is in the timing of the timing.
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Apart from studies in the natural sciences I am interested in languages and literature in general as well as religion. In high school I majored in German also, and Biology, in the meanwhile I have taught myself French, well enough to read (with a bit of difficulty).

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.

Thus not involved at all with any social media, and having time for writing, leisure, watching movies, reading fiction, classics mostly, poetry and  music. I miss my friends, and would really love getting outdoors and in nature more.
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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.
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These are my stories!

Keep your feet on the ground and reach for the Stars!

 

 

My stories

The Travelling Salesman Mathematics

Addition : Examples If you are familiar with these ideas you could skip it to the part on algorithms. Don't worry this essay is the only mathematics...

The Travelling Salesman Game

The Travelling Salesman Problem can be represented by a graph, to start with as one specific simply formulated problem hopefully then generalised...
Cherry

shaft of sunlight

Watch that shaft of sunlight through the smoke and dust, a bright patch slowly crawling on the wall to tell the time. ~ Waking slowly. This was...

The Travelling Salesman and Chess

To do routing, timetables and scheduling, if you wonder how good artificial intelligence is give it the travelling salesman problem. Then we'll see...

A virtuous Woman

To be young a bride your beauty must not be of jewels gold adorning and braiding hair, beauty is vain charm is deceit, favour is fickle, beauty fades...

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434 of my comments have received 437 Great Feedback votes

1 Vote

A dog's life!

Posted on Tue, 27 May 2025

It's a dog's life! I hope to have a dog soon we have a big yard and could always do with more security. Most of all I want a friend.

Although it is the owner that makes the dog, and your best dog ever always was a mongrel, I am very...

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Posted in Pudding Detective - Chapter 3

1 Vote

Freezing

Posted on Thu, 15 May 2025

They say when you know it is really cold is when the boere in die Vrystaat have to put on two khaki shorts –Tom

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Posted in Facing Adversary A Medieval Winter

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A ship whithout a sail,

Posted on Thu, 17 Apr 2025

A ship whithout a sail, astray no rudder nor compass, drifting to the mercy of the waves and storms and sea. Lost.

Find the anchor and the rock, Keep well, see you!

 

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Posted in Battered and Bewildered …

1 Vote

Yes very good chatter!

Posted on Sun, 30 Mar 2025

Yes very good chatter!

Yes very good chatter! But if I may say, scientiffically speaking not accurate at all.

All the best! Tom

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Posted in Rain

1 Vote

Thrilling!

Posted on Sun, 02 Mar 2025

Too true! Thrilling! Little arrows everywhere ... I am a hopeless darts player "yes the Madhouse goes on and on, there is no end to it"

Cheers! On America! On Liberty!

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Posted in Madhouse

1 Vote

Cavorting!

Posted on Fri, 28 Feb 2025

Beautiful descriptions of life Jenny! Like "Cavort in a whirl if you will" Almost weekend and it is month-end too. Shops will be a madhouse.

All the best, take it easy with that operation! Tom

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Posted in Skating Without Ice

1 Vote

Rain, Meditation and Contemplation

Posted on Fri, 21 Feb 2025

Must admit I'm a bit jealous of your ramblings and the beautiful countryside, wonderful scenery so beautifully described. And health and actually having the time that's also something.

I have seen much of it that was long ago. But I would...

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Posted in Above the Teme and Ludlow

1 Vote

What can the matter be?

Posted on Wed, 22 Jul 2009

O dear, what can the matter be? Dear, dear, what can the matter be?

O dear, what can the matter be? Tommy's so long at the fair.

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Posted in A mathematical defence

1 Vote

Climate change

Posted on Fri, 21 Feb 2025

Talk of climate change. Doesn't get much worse.

Tom

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Posted in Hibernation

1 Vote

patience

Posted on Fri, 07 Feb 2025

“I want it! now!” – is that the rule? One of the central measures of emotional intelligence is postsponment of gratification. Used to be sometimes called "patience". These days, as you say, very scarce.

Tom

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Posted in Innovative Unknown Paths

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