For lots of years I have subscribed to A.Word.A.Day, founded by Anu Garg, and on 3 June 2013 -- offered in the category of "words that appear to be misspellings" -- the word that appeared in my email was calyculus (kuh-LIK-yuh-luhs), a noun designating a cup-shaped structure. From this, of course, my thoughts turned to calculus and to poems on that subject. Below I offer "UR-CALCULUS" by Jonathan Holden. This Kansan poet has said that that his physicist father would write equations while sitting at the dining room table -- and "UR-CALCULUS" considers mathematics from a boy-riding-in-the-back-seat-of-a-car point of view.
UR-CALCULUS by Jonathan Holden
The child is the father of the man.
-- W. W. Wordsworth
Back then, "Calculus"
was a scary college word,
and yet we studied it
from the back seat, we studied
the rates at which
the roadside trees went striding
Showing posts with label calyculus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calyculus. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Calculus (and calyculus)
Labels:
Anu Garg,
calculus,
calyculus,
continuous,
Jonathan Holden,
mathematics,
measure,
poem,
position,
predict,
rate
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