Mathematicians at work

     About her collecton, The Scottish Café (Slapering Hol Press, 2002), Susan Case offers this note:
     This series of poems is loosely based upon the experiences of the mathematicians of the Scottish Café, who lived and worked in Lvov, Poland (now L'viv, Ukraine), a center of Eastern European intellectual life before World War II, close to the area from which my own ancestors emigrated to the United States.  A book, known as the Scottish Book, was kept in the Café and used to write down some of their problems and solutions.  Whoever offered a proof might be awarded a prize.
     Here is "Fixed Points," the opening poem from Case's collection:

The epitome -- Euler's Identity

Mathematics is a visual language.  As with poetry, placement on the page is a key ingredient of meaning.  Here is one of my favorite visual poems, "The Transcendence of Euler's Formula," by Neil Hennessy, a Canadian poet and computer scientist.  For additional math-poetry from Neil, follow the link.

          epitome
          epitome
          epitome
          epi+ome
          epItome
          _____________
          epit0me