Films about math and math-people

    One of my recent finds has been an article that offers a list of 20 films about math, mathematicians, and math-geniuses.  Eagerly, I opened the article to read about the films and to see which of them also involved poetry.  ALAS, I did not find that these math-people connected with poetry.  Following that non-find, I turned to a favorite source of mathy poems to discover something to post.

    That favorite source is Against Infinity, edited by Ernest Robson and Jet Wimp (Primary Press, 1979 and now out of print); this collection has been on my shelf for many years and is the first math-poetry anthology that I ever encountered.  Here is a poem from that collection, written by a Missouri high school senior, Carol Clark.

     Algebraic Love    by Carol Clark

          A function is a relation.
          Each number pairing with its double.
          To designate that unique number.
          Look for favorable conditions.
          The domain of each variable is limited
          By constraints.
          Follow the power of patterns
          To form relations.
          To form pairs.

Here is a link to other mentions of Against Infinity in this blog.