I first knew of mathematician Irving Kaplansky (1917-2006) through his monograph, Infinite Abelian Groups -- it was one of my texts for a graduate seminar (with Gene Levy) at the University of Oklahoma in the 1960s. Later I knew Kaplansky as a songwriter, author of new lyrics for "That's Entertainment." Kaplansky's adaptation, "That's Mathematics," dedicated to his former student, math-musician-songwriter Tom Lehrer, and to his daughter, singer Lucy Kaplansky, is given below.
In 1999, in Science News, writer Ivars Peterson (now Director of Publications for the MAA -- Mathematical Association of America) wrote an article about Kaplansky's songwriting in which he mentions his daughter, Lucy Kaplansky, a singer who frequently performs her father's songs. A YouTube recording of Lucy singing "The Song of Pi" (in which there is a correspondence between musical notes and the first fourteen digits of pi) is available here. (Lyrics for "The Song of Pi" and information about the correspondence are available in Peterson's article.)
Showing posts with label squares. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squares. Show all posts
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Troubles with math, expressed poetically
Should I admit that I sometimes feel a bit of resentment toward people who are insistently articulate about their difficulties with mathematics? As if that good energy might be turned toward learning the subject they decry.
On the whole, though, it seems better to face the fact that we folks who speak the language of mathematics are the odd ones. Here are perceptive trouble-with-math poems by John Stone (1936-2008), who wrote as a parent trying to help with homework, and Elizabeth Savage, who compares a pair of differently-able friends.
On the whole, though, it seems better to face the fact that we folks who speak the language of mathematics are the odd ones. Here are perceptive trouble-with-math poems by John Stone (1936-2008), who wrote as a parent trying to help with homework, and Elizabeth Savage, who compares a pair of differently-able friends.
Labels:
count,
cubes,
differences,
divide,
Elizabeth Savage,
homework,
John Stone,
math,
mathematics,
new math,
poetry,
polynomials,
Pythagoras,
squares
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