Miroslav Holub (1923-1998), Czech poet and immunologist who excelled in both endeavors, is one of my favorite poets. He combines scientific exactitude with empathy and absurdity. Here is a sample:
Brief Reflections on Logic by Miroslav Holub
translated by Stuart Friebert and Dana Habova
The big problem is everything has
its own logic. Everything you can
think of, whatever falls on your head.
Somebody will always add the logic.
In your head or on it.
Even a cylinder makes sense, at least
in that it’s not a cube. Even a cleft
makes sense, maybe just because
it’s not a big mountain.
A special logic must be assigned to cylinders
that pretend to be cubes. And clefts
that think they’re big mountains.
The logic of these things is in fact that
they strip other things of their meaning.
This reflection isn’t abstract.
It’s in view
of recent history.
This poem and several others by Holub appear in Numbers and Faces: A Collection of Poems with Mathematical Imagery, a group of poems that I gathered and edited for the Humanistic Mathematics Network in 2001. This small anthology is out of print but is available online here.
No comments:
Post a Comment