Words that warn

     Somewhere in a high school English class was a small topic that intrigues me still -- "questions that expect the answer 'yes'."  A door opened.  Letting me see that what we say has expectations as well as information. In graduate school math classes we considered the warning word "obviously" -- in a proof, it was likely to mean "I'm sure it's true but am not able to explain."
     As I muse today about language I am wondering how unsaid words affect the population of women in mathematics, affect the numbers (too small) of women publishing mathematics.  Thinking about this in the light of a wonderful time on Saturday greeting visitors to an AWM (Association for Woman in Mathematics) booth at the biennial USA Science and Engineering Festival.  Temple University professor and AWM member Irina Mitrea did an amazing job planning and coordinating  the AWM booth where hundreds of young people got some hands-on experience with secret codes and ciphers.

Because the mind circles an idea

Besides eight books of poetry and a memoir, California poet Lucille Lang Day has co-authored a textbook, How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science -- a book of activities for teachers and parents to encourage students from kindergarten through eighth grade.  Her close connection to mathematics and science is evident in the following poem.

Because     by Lucille Lang Day

My heart will beat two billion times
because Krishna plays his flute in the forest
because the planets trace elliptical orbits
because Krishna's skin is blue
because a moon will fly in a straight line forever
unless a planet snares it
the way a woman attracts a man with her gaze 

Sense and Nonsense

     Nonsense verse has a prominent place in the poetry that mathematicians enjoy. Perhaps this is so because mathematical discovery itself has a playful aspect--playing, as it were, with non-sense in an effort to tease the sense out of it.      Lewis Carroll, author of  both mathematics and literature, often has his characters offer speeches that are a clever mix of sense and nonsense. For example, we have these two stanzas from "Fit the Fifth" of The Hunting of the Snark, the words of the Butcher, explaining to the Beaver why 2 + 1 = 3.