I asked a question on what Tate’s thesis was really about on math.SE, and Matthew Emerton has posted a very thoughtful and detailed answer. You should go read it. Actually, I recommend looking at all his answers on the website, which are easily some of the best answers there.
(Apparently I am not the first person to notice this.)
April 22, 2011 at 12:37 am
This is very true! Alex Bartel also pointed this out toward the end of a particular answer to a particular meta thread on MSE. (It was concerning down votes, and voting on the website)
“If you worry too much about voting patterns on this site, you will lose your sleep. There are excellent answers that receive 2 upvotes, there are trivial answers, or even answers that literally repeat another answer that receive 10 upvotes. There are wrong answers that get accepted, there are correct and helpful answers that get downvoted. There are answers on musical theory that get over 120 upvotes (don’t get me wrong, I do like the post), while the highest vote count Prof. Matthew Emerton, one of the most generous and most lucid contributors on this site ever got on his answers is 20.”
Shortly after this post several of Matthew Emertons posts were read, and consequently upvoted, so the fact regarding 20 is no longer true.