Showing posts with label infinite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infinite. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Earth Day, 2013
OUR earth is finite.
Its resources are
finite. No clever
transformation can
convert the
finite to
infinite.
We must
learn to
share.
And, here is a link to a previous Earth Day posting.
Labels:
Earth day,
finite,
infinite,
JoAnne Growney
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Counting grains of sand
Recently I have found online translations of several poems by Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994). His poem "Sand" reminded me of a recent conversation with a friend about the word "infinite." This friend said that he would use "all the grains of sand on the earth" as an example of an infinite collection. Though I disagreed, I also have found it is not at all uncommon for people to use "infinite" -- as my friend did -- as if it means "larger than I could possibly count." In Jacobsen's poem, the number of grains of sand is finite but also unbounded. Do you agree?
Labels:
finite,
infinite,
mathematics,
poetry,
Rolf Jacobsen,
total,
unbounded
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
What is mathematics to animals?
In a playfully serious volume of verses by Eugene Ostashevsky we meet his alter ego, the "new philosopher" DJ Spinoza. With the intelligence and bravery of the other philosopher-Spinoza (Baruch / Benedict, 1632 - 1677), Ostachevsky's Spinoza pokes a bit of fun at things that might be taken too seriously -- such as logic or mathematics or . . .
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Chatting about REAL numbers
The term "real number" confuses many who are not immersed in mathematics. For these, to whom 1, 2, 3 and the other counting numbers seem most real, the identification of the real numbers as all infinite decimals (i.e., all numbers representable by points on a number line) seems at first to go beyond intuition. But, upon further reflection, the idea of a number as "real" iff it can represent a distance on a line to the right or left of a central origin, 0, indeed seems reasonable.
Professor Fred Richman of Florida Atlantic University takes on the questions of computability and enumerability of the real numbers in his poem, "Dialogue Between Machine and Man":
Labels:
Cantor,
compute,
decimal,
Fred Richman,
infinite,
irrational,
number line,
pi,
rational,
real number,
recursive
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Mathematics of desire
Last Monday evening, I listened with pleasure to Pennsylvania (Fogelsville) poet Barbara Crooker read at Cafe Muse (with Meredith Davies Hadaway and Erin Murphy). Barbara writes fine poems -- and reads them well. Although she offered no mathematical poems that evening, hearing her reminded me to hunt for her love poem "The Irrational Numbers of Longing . . " and to offer it to you here:
Labels:
Barbara Crooker,
geometry,
infinite,
intersection,
irrational,
mathematics,
negative,
poem,
postive
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Lieber's INFINITY -- poetic prose
It has surprised me to discover that some of my best-remembered learning took place at the hands of teachers I did not particularly like. One of these was a professor who introduced me, via outside reading assignments, to books by Lillian R. Lieber (1886-1986). Her free-verse-style lines in Infinity: Beyond the Beyond the Beyond gave me insights into the calculus I had recently completed as well as the set theory of my current course. (Lieber wrote not just as a mathematician but also as a human being, as a wonderfully informed and openly opinionated person. For this, too, I treasure her work.)
Labels:
calculus,
free verse,
infinite,
infinity,
Lillian R Lieber,
mathematics,
poetry
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Cantor Ternary Set
The second issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics has recently been posted -- with more new poems. The first issue contained a poem by Philip Holmes about one of the most amazing collections of numbers in all of mathematics, the Cantor Ternary Set. This set, discovered by Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883) but popularized by Georg Cantor (1845-1918) consists of all the real numbers whose base 3 or ternary representations involve only the digits 0 and 2. Like a fishing net, the Cantor Ternary Set is mostly holes. "Gaps" by Philip Holmes spreads it out before us -- and reflects on what else it may represent:
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Little Infinite Poem
Little Infinite Poem by Federico Garcia Lorca
For Luis Cardoza y Aragón
To take the wrong road
is to arrive at the snow,
and to arrive at the snow
is to get down on all fours for twenty centuries and eat
the grasses of the cemeteries.
For Luis Cardoza y Aragón
To take the wrong road
is to arrive at the snow,
and to arrive at the snow
is to get down on all fours for twenty centuries and eat
the grasses of the cemeteries.
Labels:
all fours,
Duende,
Federico Garcia Lorca,
infinite,
infinity,
mathematics,
poetry,
Robert Bly,
two
Friday, July 15, 2011
I have dreamed geometry
Descartes by Jorge Luis Borges
I am the only man on earth, but perhaps there is neither earth nor man.
Perhaps a god is deceiving me.
Perhaps a god has sentenced me to time, that lasting illusion.
I dream the moon and I dream my eyes perceiving the moon.
I have dreamed the morning and evening of the first day.
I am the only man on earth, but perhaps there is neither earth nor man.
Perhaps a god is deceiving me.
Perhaps a god has sentenced me to time, that lasting illusion.
I dream the moon and I dream my eyes perceiving the moon.
I have dreamed the morning and evening of the first day.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The Joys of Mathematics
The Joys of Mathematics by Peter Boyle
At fifty I will begin my count towards the infinite numbers.
At negative ninety nine I will start my walk towards the
infinitesimally small.
At fifty I will begin my count towards the infinite numbers.
At negative ninety nine I will start my walk towards the
infinitesimally small.
Labels:
eternity,
infinite,
Mark Strand,
mathematics,
negative,
Peter Boyle,
poem,
poetry,
recurrence,
The New Yorker,
transfinite
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Numbers are more than numbers
Today, a poem in three parts, "Trouble with Numbers" -- from the collection Mathematics and Other Poems by William Wall.
Labels:
Albert Einstein,
hexagon,
infinite,
mathematics,
numbers,
numerals,
poem,
poetry,
William Wall
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Remembering Pi-day, a day late
Yesterday (3-14) was Pi-day, but my recent thoughts have been focused on my math-teacher son Eric (who has acute pancreatitis) and his family -- and I forgot to post this poem on the proper day. Thanks to Lana Hechtman Ayers for these opening lines of "Circumference: A love poem."
Labels:
area,
circumference,
finite,
infinite,
irrational,
mathematics,
pi,
poetry
Monday, January 31, 2011
Romanian poets -- Cassian and Barbu
Born in 1924, in Galati, Romania, Nina Cassian has published over fifty books -- besides poetry, she has works of fiction and books for children. Since 1985 she has lived in exile in the United States. Among those Cassian credits with strong influences on her poetry is mathematician / poet Dan Barbilian / Ion Barbu (1895-1961). This poem by Cassian illustrates those mathematical influences:
Labels:
axis,
Dan Barbilian,
Emmy Noether,
Gauss,
horizontal,
incline,
inclined plane,
infinite,
Ion Barbu,
mathematics,
Nina Cassian,
oblique,
plane,
poetry,
Romania,
slope,
translation,
vertical
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Theorem-proof / Cut-up / poems
For mathematicians, reading a well-crafted proof that turns toward its conclusion with elegance and perhaps surprise -- this mirrors an encounter with poetry. But can one have that poetry-math experience without being fluent in the language of mathematics? Below I offer a proof (a version of Euclid's proof of the infinitude of primes) and a "cut-up" produced from that proof-- and I invite readers (both mathematical and non-mathematical) to consider them as poems.
Labels:
Brion Gysin,
contradiction,
cut-up,
Euclid,
finite,
infinite,
mathematics,
poem,
poetry,
prime,
proof,
theorem,
William Burroughs
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Length of a Coastline
In the nineties, fifteen or so years ago, when I began posting mathematical poems on the Internet, two of my earliest connections were Ken Stange, a poet and polymath and professor of psychology at Ontario's Nipissing University, and his daughter Kate, then a teen. Kate publicized her love of mathematics and poetry by creating an online collection,"Mathematical Poetry: A Small Anthology" which she has continued to maintain for many years--during which she has completed undergraduate and graduate studies in mathematics.
Labels:
anthology,
Benoit Mandelbrot,
coastline,
distance,
Euclid,
fractal,
function,
infinite,
Kate Stange,
Ken Stange,
mathematical,
million,
poetry,
ruler,
significant digit
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Ghosts of Departed Quantities
Years ago in calculus class I excitedly learned that an infinite number of terms may have a finite sum. Manipulation of infinities seems somewhat routine to me now but my early ideas of calculus enlarged me a thousand-fold. Algebra was a language, geometry was a world-view, and calculus was a big idea. Like any big idea, even though it had been hundreds of years in formation, it met with resistance. In 1764 Bishop George Berkeley attacked the logical foundations of the calculus that Isaac Newton had unified. Here, from the online mathematics magazine plus, is a description of the attack.
Labels:
Adam Dickinson,
Bishop Berkeley,
calculus,
Cantor,
finite,
infinite,
infinities,
Newton,
number,
plus,
poetry,
relation
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Against Intuition
One of my favorite poets (mentioned previously for her poem, "Pi" in my September 6 posting) is the Polish Nobelist (1996) Wislawa Szymborska. Her language is apt and spare, her thoughts are wise, and her gentle humor is frequent.
Labels:
Baranczak,
Cavanagh,
counter-intuitive,
David Hilbert,
infinite,
Janet Lewis,
mathematics,
paradox,
poetry,
set,
Wislawa Szymborska
Monday, September 6, 2010
More of Pi in Poetry
Recording artist Kate Bush has written a song entitled “Pi” which includes some of π's digits in the lyrics. Likewise, Polish Nobelist (1996) Wislawa Szymborska also features its digits in her poem, “Pi,” which begins:
Labels:
calculation,
circle,
circumference,
compact,
diameter,
digits,
infinite,
irrational,
pi,
Robert Morgan,
transcendental,
Wislawa Szymborska
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A poem of calculus (of ants on a worm)
Philip Wexler plays with the terminology of calculus in this poem:
The Calculus of Ants on a Worm
Swarming tiny
bodies nibble
away, no limits,
The Calculus of Ants on a Worm
Swarming tiny
bodies nibble
away, no limits,
Labels:
anthology,
Cabin Fever,
calculus,
Carl Phillips,
curve,
degrees,
derivative,
divide,
infinite,
limits,
Mathematics of Breathing,
null,
Philip Wexler,
reduce,
triangle,
WordWorks
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The infinitude of ecstacy -- a la Israel Lewis
Israel Lewis is the pen name of a polymath who earned his living as a scientist and is a writer in his retirement. His webpage offers a variety of his creations--many of them permeated with mathematics.
Labels:
Aleph Null,
ecstacy,
Georg Cantor,
infinite,
infinities,
infinitude,
Israel Lewis,
one,
transfinite,
zero
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