For lots of fun, go to plus online magazine at this link to find a poem that requires a knight's tour of a chess board for you to unscramble its words and read its eight lines.
Showing posts with label nonsense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nonsense. Show all posts
Monday, February 14, 2011
Puzzles, puzzlers, and parody
Labels:
Euclid,
Greg Coxson,
Hiawatha,
Knight's tour,
Lewis Carroll,
logic,
Longfellow,
mathematics,
nonsense,
parody,
plus,
poem,
puzzle,
sense
Friday, January 14, 2011
Rather like an elephant
What is mathematics?
These days I am outside of mathematics looking in and my views of the subject are more complex than during the days when I was a professor and mathematician. Back in my math-prof days -- when I moaned about those who held the view that mathematics is merely computation -- I tried to explain to uncompreheding friends the role of calculation within mathematics with this analogy: computation is to mathematics as spelling is to poetry. But those for whom computation is all of their mathematics do not accept this argument. Indeed, I myself now have the notion that one can navigate life competently without algebra -- much as I get along without Spanish or Chinese. But I regret not knowing them -- they are, like algebra, among the world's important languages.
These days I am outside of mathematics looking in and my views of the subject are more complex than during the days when I was a professor and mathematician. Back in my math-prof days -- when I moaned about those who held the view that mathematics is merely computation -- I tried to explain to uncompreheding friends the role of calculation within mathematics with this analogy: computation is to mathematics as spelling is to poetry. But those for whom computation is all of their mathematics do not accept this argument. Indeed, I myself now have the notion that one can navigate life competently without algebra -- much as I get along without Spanish or Chinese. But I regret not knowing them -- they are, like algebra, among the world's important languages.
Labels:
art,
calculation,
computation,
elephant,
John Godfrey Saxe,
mathematician,
nonsense,
pattern,
poetry,
professor
Monday, March 29, 2010
"Mathematical" Limericks
A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.
Labels:
concentricity,
definition,
Edward Lear,
Leigh Mercer,
limerick,
nonsense,
OEDILF,
Philip Heafford,
puzzle,
Randall Munroe,
recursive
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