Wow! From first sighting, I have loved this description:
I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
These lines from "Geometry" by Rita Dove express -- as well as any string of twenty-four words I can think of -- the excitement experienced from proving a theorem.
Showing posts with label geometry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geometry. Show all posts
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Friday, October 18, 2013
Mathematics of love . . .
"Mathematics of Love" is the title poem of a collection by John Edwin Cohen (1941-2012), published in 2011 by Anaphora Literary Press and presented here with press permission. Cohen has used mathematics playfully and does what a mathematician never dares to do, use a mathematical term with other than its precise meaning. Still, perhaps, even math folks may enjoy this application of geometric shape and poetic license!
Mathematics of Love by John Edwin Cohen
1.
Engine of joy
arithmetic and sincere
holding the hemisphere
and geometry of
youth
Mathematics of Love by John Edwin Cohen
1.
Engine of joy
arithmetic and sincere
holding the hemisphere
and geometry of
youth
Labels:
algebras,
circle,
geometry,
hypotenuse,
John Edwin Cohen,
mathematician,
mathematics,
tangent,
zeroes
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Averaging . . . geometry of the center
Perhaps partly due to his experience as an Air Force pilot during World War II, Harold Nemerov (1920 - 1991) uses geometry with deft precision as he describes phenomena around him. Here is a poem inspired by a 1986 news item.
Found Poem by Howard Nemerov
after information received in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4 v 86
The population center of the USA
Has shifted to Potosi, in Missouri.
The calculation employed by authorities
In arriving at this dislocation assumes
That the country is a geometric plane,
Perfectly flat, and that every citizen,
Found Poem by Howard Nemerov
after information received in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4 v 86
The population center of the USA
Has shifted to Potosi, in Missouri.
The calculation employed by authorities
In arriving at this dislocation assumes
That the country is a geometric plane,
Perfectly flat, and that every citizen,
Labels:
average,
balance,
calculation,
center,
flat,
geometry,
Howard Nemerov,
plane,
point,
population
Monday, July 8, 2013
Pool -- a game of geometry?
Years ago I taught a "liberal arts mathematics" course -- and for a time we used the text Mathematics, a Human Endeavor: A Textbook for Those Who Think They Don't Like the Subject by Harold R. Jacobs (W H Freeman, 1971); the text's topics included one new to me, the geometry of the paths of billiard balls. The ease I found with this mathematics ill-prepared me for the skill I needed to avoid embarrassment at a neighbor's new pool table -- and the memories of it all drew me immediately into Dan Brown's poem, "Why I Never Applied Myself to Pool," found in the March 2013 issue of Poetry.
Why I Never Applied Myself to Pool by Dan Brown
Why I Never Applied Myself to Pool by Dan Brown
Labels:
billiard ball,
Dan Brown,
geometry,
Harold Jacobs,
mathematics,
oblique,
poetry,
pool
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Geometry of distance
Some of the poems herein arrive as gifts from friends. Today's poem came via e-mail from Susan (a Californian whom I have gotten to know when she visits my neighbor, Priscilla). Susan got it from Larry Robinson who connected me with the poet, Richard Retecki, for permission to post it here.
As has been said in other contexts, It takes a village . . .
Thanks to you all!
ascension by Richard Retecki
for Jonathan Glass
the geometry
of distance annoys
is unfilled
As has been said in other contexts, It takes a village . . .
Thanks to you all!
for Jonathan Glass
the geometry
of distance annoys
is unfilled
Friday, May 3, 2013
Enough for everyone -- Russell Libby
Are you looking for a poem on a particular math topic? One search strategy is to go to the Poetry Foundation website (another is to click on the green SEARCH BOX in the right column of this blog) and enter your math term into the search box; if, for example, you enter "geometry" one of the poems you find will be this one by Russell Libby (1956 -2012). Both poet and organic farmer, Libby believed in sustainability: all it takes is one well-cared-for seed to grow and spread. Here is his "Applied Geometry."
Applied Geometry by Russell Libby
Applied Geometry by Russell Libby
Applied geometry,
measuring the height
of a pine from
like triangles,
Labels:
applied mathematics,
geometry,
height,
poem,
Russell Libby,
shadow,
stretch,
sustainabilty,
triangle
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Geometry of a hawk's flight
One of the poets featured in the current Poetic Likeness Exhibit -- featuring photographs and paintings and sculptures of poets along with a few favorite lines -- at the National Portrait Gallery is Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989). Although I hugely admire Warren's novel, All the King's Men, I am not very familiar with Warren as a poet. The gallery posted, beside Warren's photo, a few lines about a hawk. And I went searching online to find more. The exhibit's quote was from Warren's "Mortal Limit" but my search led first to "Evening Hawk" -- with a first stanza bright with geometry; I offer that stanza here.
Labels:
angular,
geometry,
plane,
poetry,
Robert Penn Warren
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Light and laws, letters and numbers
We viewers of the world see it through a variety of lenses -- for some of us music shapes our view, for others it is color, for others history; still others see through a lens of mathematics -- perhaps geometry, or number, or randomization or . . .
The Greek Nobelist (1979), poet, and essayist Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) was once nicknamed "the sun-drinking poet" for views seen in The Axion Este / Worthy It Is. A sample from this collection, "They Came," is offered below -- this poem is not only rich in the imagery of light but also pays tribute to geometry and numbers.
The Greek Nobelist (1979), poet, and essayist Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) was once nicknamed "the sun-drinking poet" for views seen in The Axion Este / Worthy It Is. A sample from this collection, "They Came," is offered below -- this poem is not only rich in the imagery of light but also pays tribute to geometry and numbers.
Labels:
geometer,
geometry,
Greek,
mathematics,
numbers,
Odysseus Elytis,
poem
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Latitude, longitude, and inauguration
Elizabeth Bodien now lives in a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania -- settling there after other lives in California, in Japan, in West Africa. Here is a narrative poem using the geographic numbers of latitude and longitude drawn from the years that she was a childbirth instructor in West Africa.
Zero-Zero by Elizabeth Bodien
Zero-Zero by Elizabeth Bodien
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Cities of Mathematics
Judith Johnson's multi-part poem, "Cities of Mathematics and Desire" is geometric in its descriptive power; scenes are constructed and mapped with the careful attention of a mathematical proof. At a math-poetry reading a year ago today (January 6, 2012) at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston, Johnson read part 4 of this poem -- and it is included here in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. Read on for part 2 of this 9-part poem:
2. Of the Power of Chess to Feed the Starved by Judith Johnson
2. Of the Power of Chess to Feed the Starved by Judith Johnson
Friday, January 4, 2013
Geometry of a Gun
Despite the recent news media chatter about a "fiscal cliff," the event that we can't (and mustn't) stop thinking about is the December 14 massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This draws me to a poem by Joan Mazza (whose poem "Digits" was featured earlier this week on New Year's Day); this new poem deals with the geometry of eggs and of bullets. Please think of gun control.
Geometry Lesson by Joan Mazza
Geometry Lesson by Joan Mazza
Labels:
circle,
cylinder,
geometry,
Joan Mazza,
revolver
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Symmetry in poetry
In Euclidean Geometry, objects retain their size and shape during rigid motions (also called symmetries); one of these is translation -- movement of an object from one place to another along a straight line path. Here are a few lines by Alberta poet Alice Major that explore the paths of rhyme as a sound moves to and fro within a poem :
Rhyme's tiles slide
from line
to line, a not-so-rigid motion --
a knitted, shifting symmetry
that matches 'tree'
Rhyme's tiles slide
from line
to line, a not-so-rigid motion --
a knitted, shifting symmetry
that matches 'tree'
Labels:
Alice Major,
Bridges Conference,
geometry,
line,
poetry,
rhyme,
symmetry,
translation
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Geometry . . . a way of seeing
Today's poem is not only a fine work of art, it is also -- for me-- a doorway to memory. I first heard it in the poet's voice when he visited Bloomsburg University in the late 1980s, and I was alerted to the reading and to James Galvin's work by my most dear friend, BU Professor of English Ervene Gulley (1943-2008). Ervene had been a mathematics major as an undergraduate but moved on from abstract algebra to Shakespeare. Her compassion, her broad-seeing view, and her fierce logic served her well in the study and teaching of literature. And in friendship. I miss her daily. She, like Galvin, questioned life and probed its geometry.
Labels:
Elements,
Euclid,
geometry,
horizon,
James Galvin,
Johannes Kepler,
line,
mathematics,
opposite,
poetry,
point
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The view from here -- or there
From Nashville math teacher and blogger, Tad Wert, I learned of this poem, "Geometry, Lost Cove" by his Harpeth Hall School colleague, Georganne Harmon; in it, Harmon examines the contrasts in appearances when objects are seen from different distances. (And the mathematician goes on to say, Ah, yes -- in other words, some mappings of a space do not preserve distance.)
Geometry, Lost Cove by Georganne Harmon
The ridge across this cove
is straight as a ruled line,
its bend as pure as an angle
on a student’s quadrilled page.
Beyond it another ridge lies
straight-backed, as well,
drawn off by its touch with sky.
Geometry, Lost Cove by Georganne Harmon
The ridge across this cove
is straight as a ruled line,
its bend as pure as an angle
on a student’s quadrilled page.
Beyond it another ridge lies
straight-backed, as well,
drawn off by its touch with sky.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Is Algebra Necessary?
Anticipating my interest, several friends sent me links to a late-July opinion piece in The New York Times entitled "Is Algebra Necessary?" (written by an emeritus political science professor, Andrew Hacker). I more-or-less agree with Hacker that algebra is not necessary in most daily lives or places of employment. In fact, years ago I developed a non-algebra text, Mathematics in Daily Life, for a course designed to satisfy a math-literacy requirement at Bloomsburg University. On the other hand, my own fluency in the language of algebra opened doors to calculus and to physics and so many other rooms of knowledge that I have loved.
Expressing algebraic issues in verse, we have this thoughtful poem by Jeannine Hall Gailey, Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington (home of Microsoft).
Expressing algebraic issues in verse, we have this thoughtful poem by Jeannine Hall Gailey, Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington (home of Microsoft).
Monday, September 10, 2012
It Crossed My Mind
In Elinor Gordon Blair -- my English teacher during my junior and senior years at Indiana Joint High School in Indiana, Pennsylvania -- I found a woman who became a life-long inspiration to me. An insatiable reader and always curious, Elinor Blair seemed to learn from every thing that came along. Such an excellent strategy -- and I learned it from her.
Mrs Blair -- is my habit to continue to call her by this formal name -- still lives in Indiana and she is 99 years old. Three years ago she published a poetry collection, It Crossed My Mind. These following stanzas from Blair's collection use imagery from geometry to describe the destructive way in which "skeletons of steel" have remade our American landscapes.
Thank you, Mrs. Blair, for these lines and for the ways you have enriched my life.
Mrs Blair -- is my habit to continue to call her by this formal name -- still lives in Indiana and she is 99 years old. Three years ago she published a poetry collection, It Crossed My Mind. These following stanzas from Blair's collection use imagery from geometry to describe the destructive way in which "skeletons of steel" have remade our American landscapes.
Thank you, Mrs. Blair, for these lines and for the ways you have enriched my life.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Math super-hero
One day not long ago I told my Silver Spring neighbor, Nancy KapLon (nee Lon), of my interest in helping outstanding math-women to be more widely known. Nancy told me about her wonderful and excellent favorite teacher -- geometer Jean Bee Chan of Sonoma State University in California. Nancy ('93) was a first generation college student and Dr. Chan, as her mentor, guided her through the undergraduate experience to graduation with distinction and graduate school. Here is a syllable snowball, grown in Chan's honor.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Crocheting mathematics
Charlotte Henderson majored in mathematics and English at Wellesley College and has applied her dual interests as an editor for A K Peters, Ltd (a science and technology publisher that is now part of CRC Press). Several manuscripts on which she has worked at A K
Peters have drawn her to the connections between mathematics and
art, including needlework. She is particularly interested in the diverse
possibilities of crochet, which she learned after working on Daina Taimina's book, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes. Charlotte has turned this interest into art and into a poem:
Friday, March 2, 2012
Seeing Distance -- geometry in photography
One of my favorite poem-stanza styles is a syllable-square -- it distributes the weights of the words in a way that pleases me. The poem below has squares of several sizes and I post it as a prior-to-seeing-the-exhibit opposite to my response to photography currently displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum -- "Pilgrimage," by Annie Leibovitz. While many photographs, my own in particular, seem particularly flat, such was not the case with these. As if I were wearing special lenses, I was able to see and feel depth – not only in a view of Niagara Falls but also in the fabric and buttons of a dress that had belonged to Emily Dickinson.
Labels:
Annie Lebovitz,
depth,
distance,
geometry,
limit,
photograph,
square stanza
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Portraits of a mathematician
Ideas for this posting began with my post on 30 October 2011 in which I selected 7 favorite lines of poetry as a sort of self-portrait. That posting led to an exchange with blogger Peter Cameron -- which prompted me to write these abecedarian portraits of a mathematician.
I know a mathematician . . . by JoAnne Growney
always busy
counting, doubting
every figured guess,
haply idling,
juggling, knowing
logic, measure, n-dimensions,
originating
playful quests,
resolutely seeking theorems,
unknowns vanish :
wrong xs, ys -- zapped.
I know a mathematician . . . by JoAnne Growney
always busy
counting, doubting
every figured guess,
haply idling,
juggling, knowing
logic, measure, n-dimensions,
originating
playful quests,
resolutely seeking theorems,
unknowns vanish :
wrong xs, ys -- zapped.
Labels:
abecedarian poem,
geometry,
guess,
JoAnne Growney,
mathematician,
poem,
poetry,
portrait,
theorem
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