"Celebration of the Mind" Day -- October 21

     Established in honor of math-popularizer Martin Gardner (1914-2010), Celebration of the Mind Day occurs on October 21 each year.  Lots of interesting information about Gardner and the celebration-day may be found at this link.      This link leads to previous postings in this blog that feature Gardner and his work.   Not a poet, Gardner called himself "an occasional versifier" and here is an example:

          π goes on and on
          And e is just as cursed
          I wonder, how does π begin
          When its digits are reversed?    

For an array of mathy connections that celebrate the mind and stretch it, explore the links offered above!  

Celebrate Martin Gardner

     Martin Gardner (1914-2010) was a friend to mathematics and made many aspects of the subject available to a wide audience for twenty-five years in a Scientific American column , "Mathematical Games" -- material later collected in a variety of books.  I have featured Gardner's connections to math-poetry in several previous blog postings -- and today I want to mention an event  happening this weekend (April 11-15, in Decatur, Georgia), the 13th Annual Gathering for Gardner.   Lots of math-fun is on the agenda -- and a bit of poetry.  
     On Sunday, April 15, Professor Manjul Bhargava of Princeton University will lecture on “Poetry, Drumming, and Mathematics.” Bhargava won the Fields Medal, which is one of the highest honors for a mathematician.  More information about the annual gatherings for Gardner is available here.  
     In closing,  noting the coming of spring with its April celebration of both mathematics and poetry, here are a few lines of verse -- the opening stanza from an old poem of mine entitled "Time."

          The clock goes round --
          making time a circle
          rather than a line.
          Each year's return to spring
          layers time on time.

A second part of "Time" is available here.

Both are collected in Red Has No Reason (Plain View Press, 2010).

Twelveness -- a Fibonacci poem from G4G

     Science writer, philosopher, and skeptic Martin Gardner (1914-2010) is perhaps best known for his long-running Scientific American column, "Mathematical Games."  His life and work are celebrated by G4G conferences ("Gatherings for Gardner") held in even-numbered years in Atlanta.  Here fans gather and present fun-mathematics to each other.
     A several-time participant in G4G is Kate Jones of Kadon Enterprises, an organization devoted to the development and distribution of Game Puzzles.  Below in a Fibonacci poem created for the 2016 G4G Jones tells the history of her game-puzzle enterprise.

Many Fibonacci poems use the Fibonacci number sequence 

to determine the numbers of syllables in successive lines of a poem.  

In the following poem, it is the numbers of words that are counted.
 A pentomino is a plane geometric figure formed by joining five equal squares edge to edge.  
There are twelve differently-shaped pentominos; this number gives the title of Jones's poem.

TWELVENESS  by Kate Jones

  1    Martin
  1    Gardner
  2    Long ago
  3    Wrote about pentominoes,
  5    Brainchild of young Solomon Golomb,
  8    The coolest recmath set in all the world.   

How Old Is the Rose-Red City?

     Most of Martin Gardner's fans are avid puzzler's -- my connection with him is also one of admiration (he was a thoughtful person who was a master at making connections among disparate things) but we are connected via poetry, including topics such as counting all possible rhyme schemes for a given stanza and the constraint-based poetry of OULIPO . . ..
     Gardner (1914-2010) was not a poet -- although he penned a quatrain or two, his great contribution was collecting and publicizing parodies and puzzle-verses by others.  Here is a link to Gardner's collection of poetic parodies, and here is a link to many of Gardner's puzzles, including the stanza below, "How Old is the Rose-Red City?" 

Martin Gardner collected poems

     Last week the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) had a special program honoring Martin Gardner (1914-2010); tomorrow (October 21) is the 100th anniversary of his birth.   The shelving in the MAA meeting room displayed copies of many of Gardner's approximately one hundred books.  However, none of the books displayed were books of poetry and, indeed, Gardner referred to himself as "an occasional versifier" but not a poet.  Nonetheless he helped to popularize OULIPO techniques in his monthly (1956-81) Scientific American column, "Mathematical Games," and he also was a collector and editor of anthologies, parodies, and annotated versions of familiar poetic works.  Here is a link to his Favorite Poetic Parodies.  And one may find Famous Poems from Bygone Days and The Annotated Casey at the Bat and half a dozen other titles by searching at amazon.com using "martin gardner poetry." 

Math, Magic, Mystery -- and so few women

Today, April 30, is the final day of Mathematics Awareness Month 2014; this year's theme has been "Mathematics, Magic and Mystery" and it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the most interesting men of mathematics; educated as a philosopher, Martin Gardner wrote often about mathematics and sometimes about poetry.  Gardner described his relationship to poetry as that of "occasional versifier" -- he is the author, for example, of:

     π goes on and on
     And e is just as cursed
     I wonder, how does π begin
     When its digits are reversed?   

Martin Gardner, again

     This past weekend a review by Teller (magician of the Penn & Teller team) of an autobiography of Martin Gardner appeared in the NYTimes Book Review.  According to Teller, Gardner (1914-2010) wrote the memoir, Undiluted Hocus-Pocus:  The Autobiography of Martin Gardner, at the age of 95 on an old electric typewriter in his single-room assisted-living apartment in Norman, Oklahoma.    

Symmetric 4 x 4 square

Martin Gardner (1914-2010) studied philosophy and was interested in everything.  For 25 years he wrote the "Mathematical Games" feature for Scientific American.  At Magic Dragon Multimedia, Jonathan Vos Post has collected many of the poems Gardner featured in his column over the years.  Here is a symmetric square poem from February, 1964.

            C U B E
            U G L Y
            B L U E
            E Y E S

I miss you, Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner (1914-2010), featured also in my June 6 posting, would have been 96 years old today--October 21, 2010.  All over the world lovers of mathematical puzzles have taken time today to celebrate Gardner's puzzling--and the ways it stimulated their own.  Although Gardner disclaimed poetic gifts, he popularized puzzle poems written by others -- and he introduced the poetry strategies of the OULIPO (see March 25, August 5, and August 23 postings) to American readers.  Here is a puzzle poem, by an unknown author, included in Gardner's Puzzles from Other Worlds (Vintage, 1984) and in Strange Attractors (A K Peters, 2008). 

Snowballs -- growing/shrinking lines

Today's post explores poetic structures called snowballs developed by the Oulipo (see also March 25 posting) and known to many through the writings of Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner (1914-2010).  TIME Magazine's issue for January 10, 1977 had an article entitled "Science:  Perverbs and Snowballs" that celebrated both Gardner and the inventive structures of the Oulipo. Oulipian Harry Mathews' "Liminal Poem" (to the right) is a snowball (growing and then melting) dedicated to Gardner.  The lines in Mathew's poem increase or decrease by one letter from line to line.   Below left, a poem by John Newman illustrates the growth-only snowball.

Celebrate Martin Gardner (1914-2010)

Martin Gardner described his relationship to poetry as that of "occasional versifier" -- he is the author, for example, of:

     π goes on and on
     And e is just as cursed
     I wonder, how does π begin
     When its digits are reversed?

Mathematical 'grooks' from Piet Hein

Piet Hein (Denmark, 1905-1996) was many-faceted--by times a philosopher, mathematician, designer, scientist, inventor of games and poet. He also created a new poetic form that he called 'grook' ("gruk" in Danish). Hein wrote over 10,000 grooks, most in Danish or English, published in more than 60 books. Some say that the name is short for 'GRin & sUK' ("laugh & sigh", in Danish).  Here are samples, with links to more: