Showing posts with label William Benjamin Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Benjamin Smith. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 1

This is the first in a series of postings involving poems in which the principal subject is a mathematician.

     In “The Ideal Mathematician,” an essay in The Mathematical Experience, authors Philip Davis, Reuben Hersh, and Elena Marchisotto endeavor to describe the most mathematician-like mathematician:  He rests his faith on rigorous proof ...  He is labeled by his field, by how much he publishes . . .   He finds it difficult to establish meaningful conversation with that large portion of humanity that has never heard of [his research topic] ...  His writing follows an unbreakable convention:  to conceal any sign that the author or the intended reader is a human being ....