Saturday, November 5, 2011
Four colors will do
Bernhart is an expert on the Four-Color Theorem and his poem celebrates its history -- including consideration of its proof (in 1976) by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. (The theorem asserts that any map drawn on a flat surface or on a sphere requires only 4 colors to ensure that no regions sharing a boundary segment have the same color.)
Thursday, January 24, 2019
A Multi-Author Poem Celebrating Math-People
ideas unfold in space, time, and hearts.
Math is the language of everyone
Any part of everything began as a sum.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Division by Zero
Division by Zero by Tom Petsinis
She could’ve been our grandmother
Warning us of poisonous mushrooms ‒
To stress her point she'd scratch
The taboo bold with crimson chalk.
It should never be used to divide,
Or we'd be howled from lined yard
To pit where cruel paradoxes ruled.
Her warnings tempted us even more:
Young, growing full in confidence,
We’d prove the impossible for fun ‒
Nothing she said could restrain us
From showing two is equal to one.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
They Say She Was Good -- for a Woman
I am honored to announce that my article, "They Say She Was Good -- for a Woman," -- a collection of poems and musings about women in mathematics (and featuring a poem about Emmy Noether) -- is part of the current issue.
Friday, August 13, 2021
JHM -- a rich source of mathy poems
Every six months the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics offers a new online issue and includes a generous offering of mathy poems. Here is a link to the current issue (Vol, 11, No, 2, July 2021) and I offer --after a sample, which features a type of algebra problem -- the titles, authors, and links to JHM mathy poems.
Train Algebra by Mary Soon Lee
Do not use a calculator. Show your work.
Haruki leaves Chicago Union Station at 10:42 pm
on a train traveling at 60 miles per hour.
At 10:33 pm, Haruki boards the train.
He’s abandoned his job,
his collection of cactuses;
has only his cell phone, his wallet,
and a dog-eared paperback.
He walks through two carriages
before finding an open seat,
apologizes as he sits down
beside a woman his mother’s age.
The woman glares at him.
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Journal of Humanistic Mathematics -- latest issue
Every six months a wonderful treasure appears in my email-box -- an announcement, with links, to the latest issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. Here is a link to the Table of Contents for this latest (July 2022) issue.
Gathered and edited by Mark Huber (Claremont McKenna College) and Gizem Karaali (Pomona College) this open access journal contains a variety of articles and fiction and poetry. With topics such as "Math in the Time of COVID" and "A Report about a Speaker Series Connecting Mathematics and Religion," the journal offers both depth and variety as its contents explore the humanistic aspects of mathematics. Following more than twenty articles, we come to these poems: