Today -- April 14, 2015 -- marks the 150th birthday of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) and April 15 is the date on which he died. Lincoln loved poetry and trained his reasoning with Euclid's geometry. Here is a brief sample of his own poetry (found -- along with other samples -- at PoetryFoundation.org).
Abraham Lincoln by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When
From my copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (Signet Classics, 1955), from the section "Memories of Lincoln," I have copied these well-known and thoughtful (and non-mathematical) lines:
Showing posts with label Abraham Lincoln. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abraham Lincoln. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Lincoln and Euclid -- common notions
This afternoon I enjoyed the recently-released film, Lincoln -- appreciating Sally Fields as Mary Todd, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens and (especially) Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. An absorbing drama -- inspiring and also informative. With a slight mention of mathematics: in a film conversation with two-young telegraph operators, Lincoln reflected on his study of Euclid and shared with the young men the first of Euclid's common notions:
Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
Labels:
Abraham Lincoln,
Anne Porter,
equal,
Euclid,
mathematics,
poetry,
slavery
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