Showing posts with label Mathematician's Apology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mathematician's Apology. Show all posts

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Two cultures

The opening poem of Uneasy Relations by mathematician-poet Michael Bartholomew-Biggs is concerned with similarities and differences between mathematical and poetic cultures -- a topic of immense interest also to me and one that I too try to address in my verse.  I wonder --  HOW can I show non-mathematicians that good mathematics is poetry??!!  And, moreover, how can I (mostly a mathematician) write (as advocated by Wallace Stevens and agreed with by other poets) of things rather than (as mathematics wants) of ideas.  OR, may one make poetry of ideas?

   Two Cultures     by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs

   Graves claimed there isn't
   much money in poetry:
   and none vice-versa.

   The first part stays true
   if we replace poetry
   by mathematics. 

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Mathematicians are NOT entitled to arrogance

Godfrey Harold “G. H.” Hardy (1877 – 1947) was an English mathematician known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. One of Hardy's lasting contributions is his 1940 essay, ;A Mathematician's Apology, which offers his self-portrait of the mind of a working mathematician. Here, written in lines and stanzas -- as a found poem -- is the opening paragraph of Hardy's essay: