Wednesday, February 26, 2020

A MATH WOMAN acrostic poem

Can one describe a MATH WOMAN in 9 words?
and, what if those words' first letters must spell MATH WOMAN?
Try it -- it's fun!

       M  ultiplies
       A  xioms
       T  risects
       H  yperbolas

       W  rites
       O  rthogonal
       M  atrices
       A   voids
       N   egatives

Monday, February 24, 2020

Counting syllables, considering snowflakes

     From Larry Lesser, a professor at The University of Texas at El Paso (a researcher in math education) and a poet and songwriter and friend, today's poem offers a thoughtful reflection on the properties of a snowflake--and the fragility of thought and weather patterns.  But first (and also from Lesser), here's a clever "2019" stanza (in which each line has the number of syllables of the corresponding digit in that year):

                    Silence

                    is
                    sometimes the strongest thing we can say.


       SNOWFLAKE     by Lawrence Mark Lesser

        Some say
        ‘‘no two alike’’,
        others say
        ‘‘not too alike’’.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Which order is best -- or should I try them all?

This posting celebrates a new poetry collection -- 
Ringing the Changes by Stephanie Strickland 
(Counterpath, 2020).
This new collection starts with an idea from bell-ringing.  Some city towers have marvelous-sounding bells -- and sometimes these bells ring wonderful concerts for nearby inhabitants.  One of the traditional bell-ringing activities is called "ringing the changes" in which a collection of n bells are rung, in sequence, in all of the possible n-factorial bell-orders.  (Here, at Strickland's website, are some links to information about the art of bell-ringing.)

BUT, what if the goal were not to ring bells in sequence 
but to generate (for a reader) sequences of words (thoughtful poetic phrases)?
This sort of art is what Strickland brings to us in Ringing the Changes.

Monday, February 17, 2020

Those trains in word problems -- who rides them?

    A Problem in a Math Book     by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)

     I remember a problem in a math book
     about a train that leaves from place A and another train
     that leaves from place B. When will they meet?
     And no one ever asked what happens when they meet:
     will they stop or pass each other by, or maybe collide?
     And none of the problems was about a man who leaves from place A
     and a woman who leaves from place B. When will they meet, 

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

"Binary Heart" -- linking love and mathematics

      From the xkcd webcomic by Randall Munroe -- and also shown on the cover of Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics, we have this reminder of upcoming Valentine's Day.
"Binary Heart" by Randall Munroe,
at https://xkcd.com/99/
     Munroe's clever drawings "of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" have appeared also in previous postings in this blog (here's a link) and his website is fun to visit.
     The anthology, Strange Attractors; Poems of Love and Mathematics-- edited by Sarah Glaz and me -- was published in 2008 by AK Peters and contains more than 150 poems of math and love (including another -- "Useless" -- by Munroe.)  More about Munroe is available here.

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Valentine's Day -- a time for Love and Mathematics

     Perhaps you are looking for a mathy Valentine
or a Valentine for a mathy person . . . or both.  

and offers lots of math-poetic possibilities.

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Welcome DIVERSITY in mathematics

     As February on the calendar brings BLACK HISTORY month and March brings WOMEN'S HISTORY month, I invite you to explore the contributions of diverse groups to mathematics.  In this blog, I celebrate links between a rainbow of math-people and poetry -- for example, in this posting, "Mathematicians are not just white dudes, (which includes links to math-poetry by Benjamin Banneker and Scott Williams). 

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Another prize-winning poem

     It was not until after my posting yesterday that I got permission from the third of the winners in the AMS 2020 student poetry contest to post his work.  Here is "The Number Won" by Austen Mazenko.   (And here is a link to a YouTube video of the January 18 event in which each of the winning poets reads their winning poem.)
Austen is a high school senior from Greenwood Village, CO. He loves words, numbers, and their patterns--and looks forward to pursuing mathematics in college next year.
THANK YOU to the American Mathematical Society for encouraging math-poetry!

Monday, February 3, 2020

Prize-winning math poems -- 2020 AMS contest

In 2020, for the second year in a row, the American Mathematical Society has held a math-poetry contest for students.  (Contest information is available here.)  The three winning poems in the 2020 AMS Math Poetry Contest are:

    "Outlier," by Sabrina Little, Mackintosh Academy, Boulder
    "The Number Won," by Austen Mazenko, Cherry Creek High School
    "x² + y² = 1(ife)," by Chenyu Lin, Colorado Christian University

From Chenyu (aka "Emily") and Sabrina I have received permission to present their poems here:

Lin's university studies include a major in Nursing. Her future plans include graduate study and either nursing education practice in under-developed communities or research in patient care.

Sabrina is a thirteen-year-old from Louisville, CO. Her hobbies include drawing, painting, and martial arts.

Further information about the contest -- and last year's contest also -- is available here.