my colleague reads math entries in wikipedia at least 4 hours a day. obscure optimization and nonlinear fitting methods. it blows my mind. in the last 6 mont

my colleague reads math entries in wikipedia at least 4 hours a day. obscure optimization and nonlinear fitting methods. it blows my mind. in the last 6 months he has learned a TON of material and I am very envious of the knowledge he's gained. i want to learn what he has learned, and more importantly i want to WANT to pore over wikipedia math articles and try out the techniques, but its just not in me. i learn when i have to and i force myself to. he does it because its fun. he'd do it even if it didn't help him or have any application to his work (frequently it doesn't). reading, testing, confirming new algorithms is his "guilty pleasure" in the same way some people can't stop playing starcraft. kind of awesome really.