Showing posts with label Latin square. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latin square. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

As a new school-year starts, a Latin Square poem

 With MATH in the middle, 
 here is a LATIN-SQUARE poem that starts and ends with GIRLS 

girls
do
great
math
do
math
girls
great
great
girls
math
do
math
great
do
girls


Friday, September 16, 2011

Best words in the best order

     Writers of mathematics strive for clear and careful wording, especially in the formulation of definitions. Well-specified definitions can enable theorems to be proved succinctly. For example, the relation "less than" (denoted <) for the positive integers {1,2,3,...} may be defined as follows:

     If  a  and  are integers, then 
               a < b  if  b - a  is a positive integer. 

     Although the simple definition of "less than" as "to the left of" in the list {1,2,3,...} is intuitively clear, the formal definition above is better suited for mathematical arguments. It defines "less than" in terms of the known term, "positive." This sort of sequencing of definitions is common in mathematics -- one may go on to define "greater than" in terms of "less than," and so on.
     Saying things in the best way is also a goal of poetry. Well known to many are these words of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834):