In recent weeks I have been experimenting with poems that use mathematical terminology, wondering whether -- since there are readers who are undaunted by unknown literary references (to Dante's Divine Comedy or Eliot's Prufrock, for example) -- some readers will relish a poem with unexplained mathematical connections. In this vein I have offered "Love" (posted on on November 5) and now give the following poem, "Small Powers of Eleven are Palindromes":
Showing posts with label Catalan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catalan. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Counting rhymes -- Catalan, Bell numbers
In mathematics, the Catalan numbers (named for Belgian mathematician Eugène Charles Catalan, 1814–1894, and beginning with 1, 1, 2, 5, 14, 42, 132, 429, . . . ) and the Bell numbers (named for the Scottish mathematician Eric Temple Bell, 1883-1960, and beginning with 1, 1, 2, 5, 15, 52, 203, 877, . . . ), provide answers to a variety of mathematical counting-problems, including counting the number of rhyme schemes for stanzas of poetry. In English, earliest classification of rhyme schemes dates back to George Puttenham and his treatise, The Arte of English Poesie (published around 1590).
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