It struck me, talking to a friend from RPI, that the types of nerds I encounter at Georgetown will be markedly different from the nerds found at Rensselaer. While (I imagine) it will be easier to find econ nerds, I have a feeling that there will be far fewer techies. And, you know, internet geeks and movie buffs and mathematicians.

So I’m trying to develop a list of  “necessary topics for nerditry,” at least inasmuch as I myself define nerditry. Note that they are necessary conditions but not sufficient conditions, since there is a certain je ne sais quoi about nerds that can’t be defined. And I’m not looking for  “A nerd is X” or “A nerd does Y” either — think of this as: “if I wanted to emulate a nerd, what would I need to know?”

Nerds need to be familiar with at least one and preferably many esoteric academic topics very well. So the first condition isn’t a particular topic, it’s any topic, provided you can speak with authority and are actually interested in it. Next you need to know a bunch of trivia. Again the particular topic isn’t important, though movie quotes and internet memes are sure bets. A nerd should be comfortable with maths. If someone starts talking about sets or normal distributions or Laplace transforms, you should know what they’re saying. Maths provide a useful language for discussion, much like economics, so learning the terminology of your nerd group is vital.

I suppose all nerds are different. I wonder if a set of necessary conditions for nerditry could ever be formulated. This is harder than I had anticipated.