Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37

An elliptic curve is defined by numbers $a$ and $b$. The curve is the set of all points $(x,y)$ of the real plane that satisfy the Equation 1. "Definition of the elliptic curves"

Equation 1. "Definition of the elliptic curves" definies elliptic curves over any field, it doesn't have to the real numbers. Notably, the definition also works for finite fields, leading to elliptic curve over a finite fields, which are the ones used in Elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman cyprotgraphy.

Ciro Santilli is a collector at heart. But a collector of knowledge.

His uncle, which Ciro rassembles in many ways, was like that. But he collected physical objects such as wines and stamps. Or even worse, objects that were meant to be collected such Panini soccer sticker albums! This Ciro looks down on.

With computers, knowledge takes no physical space and can be immediately shared with the hole world, and there is great beauty to that, as you can just keep collecting forever without filling up your house.

But of course, physical or not, all attachments futile.

Like other types collecting, once Ciro decides that "he must know everything about a given subject", he will keep coming back to that subject over and over. Not in a systematic way of course, since Ciro is a lazy bastard, but he will keep coming back for a very long time, and eventually become an expert at it.

This compulsive hoarding, together with Ciro Santilli's bad old event memory, are the fundamental reasons for OurBigBook.com.