Ada Lovelace Day -- this year October 8

      The second Tuesday in October has been selected as Ada Lovelace Day -- a time for celebrating that pioneering woman and all women in STEM.

     Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, better known as Ada Lovelace  (December 10, 1815–November 27, 1852) -- and daughter of the poet Lord Byron -- is celebrated as the world’s first computer programmer, the first person to combine the mathematical capabilities of computational machines with the poetic possibilities of symbolic logic (applied with clever imagination).  (Many more biographical details  may be found at this link.)  And here is a link to an interesting article by Johns Hopkins voice Meghana Ravi entitled "Ada Lovelace found poetry in computer algorithms."

     I have posted poetry about Ada Lovelace several times in this blog; here is a link to those past postings.  The following poetic words -- by Ada Lovelace  -- concerning translation of mathematical principles into practical forms -- were first posted back in September of 2015. 

Celebrating Women who write Mathy Poems

       Now in March -- in Women's History Month -- many writers are taking a bit of extra time to explore the history and achievements of women.  It was my delight to find a March 6 posting here on the Poetry Blogging Network with a list of celebrated women in poetry that includes several writers of mathy poems.  Of the ten poets listed, the following five have been included in this blog -- in earlier postings.  For each, I include a mathy sample and the poet's name is linked to earlier postings that include their work.

     Adrienne Rich   from Planetarium 

             a woman      ‘in the snow     
             among the Clocks and instruments              
             or measuring the ground with poles  

            in her 98 years to discover    
            8 comets

Women in Math -- Don't Hide Them!!

     In the days and years since my schooling, the numbers of math-women have increased and their public recognition also has increased.  But not enough!  This list of 18 remarkable women in STEM includes only one math-woman  AND. here are several book-seller links to explore: 

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World
30 Remarkable Women in Science and Math
The First Woman in Space: Valentina Tereshkova
20 Greatest Mathematicians: Masters of Mathematics from the Past, Present, Future

     A very important math-influence in my life was my high school math teacher for my junior and senior years, Laura Church.  Today, exploring the internet, searching for her name, I found only this memorial statement and, although it tells of her teaching at Indiana Joint High School, it does not mention that her teaching-subject was math.  Here is a stanza that celebrates her:  

Student Contests -- Essays, Poems -- Due by Feb. 1

 STUDENTS – Middle School, High School, College

    Write a Mathy POEM

             OR

    Interview a Math-Woman, write an ESSAY                                 about her

Entries are being accepted now – and up to FEBRUARY 1, 2024.

Information about the MATH-POETRY competition is available here.

Information about the MATH-WOMAN ESSAY CONTEST is available here.

Write about a MATH-WOMAN -- and WIN!

     Years ago -- when I was the only woman in the Bloomsburg University mathematics department --  I wrote a poem, "My Dance is Mathematics," about the mathematician Emmy Noether -- and it contained the following lines:

               If a woman's dance is mathematics,
               She dances alone.

But things are changing!  Founded in 1971, AWM (Association for Women in Mathematics) has been actively celebrating the lives of female mathematicians  -- and one of AWM's current and far-reaching activities is a STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST for which students -- in middle-school, high-school, and college categories -- are invited to interview a female mathematician and write about her.  The essay-submission period is December 1, 2023 - February 1, 2024.  Questions may be directed to AWM Essay Contest Organizer, Dr. Johanna Franklin (johanna.n.franklin@hofstra.edu). 

Take a Tour -- of Mathy Poems

       Recently I have discovered (at the website of the American Mathematical Society, AMS) a blog posting that features my blog.  Entitled "A Tour of Intersections:  Poetry with Mathematics," the posting by math and science writer Rachel Crowell.  Below I post a sample:

"MATH WOMAN"  -- acrostic poem by JoAnne Growney

This link leads to the AMS postings by Crowell that features my poems.

AND . . .  readers are invited to EXPLORE THIS  BLOG for more!

AND

CREATE mathy poems!  and share them with joannegrowney (at) gmail (dot) com.

Chat GPT writes about Emmy Noether

       Learning about AI and exploring its possibilities has been an interesting recent activity for me.  One of my own favorite math-related poems is a poem I wrote many years ago about mathematician Emmy Noether -- and that poem, "My Dance is Mathematics," is available here in this blog at this link.  I offer below a poem from ChatGPT;  my instructions were:  write a poem about Emmy Noether -- and I got this:

     In realms of math where brilliance takes its flight,
     There dwells a star whose radiance shines so bright,
     Emmy Noether, a name of boundless grace,
     A mathematician whose legacy we embrace.

     Born in Erlangen, a spark in her eyes,
     She defied the norms, reached for the skies,
     In a time when women faced a daunting door,
     She pushed it open, forevermore.  

A Pioneering Woman

      Born in Washington DC in 1924, Evelyn Boyd Granville graduated from Smith College in 1945 and in 1949 became the second African-American woman to receive a PhD from an American university -- from Yale.  She worked primarily in computing.  (July 7 update:  from this morning's Washington Post I have sadly learned that Granville has passed -- on June 27, 2023).

Details of Granville's achievements may be found here and here.

Celebrate Hypatia

     Consilience is an online journal (edited by Sam Illingworth) that explores "the spaces where the sciences and the arts meet" -- and in the recent Issue 12 I have found a very special poem by British science writer Isabel Thomas that celebrates the pioneering math-woman, Hypatia of Alexandria (died 415 AD), one of the first women whose study and teaching of mathematics, astronomy and philosophy has been documented.  I offer several stanzas of "Rimae Hypatia" -- followed by a link to the complete poem.  

     Rimae Hypatia       by Isabel Thomas

                   The Rimae Hypatia is a lunar fissure named for Hypatia.

          In the greatest library of the ancient world
          Hypatia 
          turned her mind to 
          algebra, astronomy, geometry,
          examining the world from different angles.    

International Women's Day

     Today, March 8, is International Women's Day -- a day to pause, recognize, and celebrate the achievements and abilities of women (and their equality with men).

In my poetry-stanza below I celebrate Laura Church -- my high school math teacher (in Indiana, PA)  a bold spokesperson for math-for-all back in the 1950s  AND the woman who led me into mathematics.

       Chalk in hand,
       she tosses her book,
       strides across the room,
       excited by trigonometry,
       excited that we,
       restless in our rows,
       caught some of it.
       Flamboyant, silver,
       fearless woman.

The stanza above is part of "The Ones I Best Remember" -- the full poem is available here.

Recognition and celebration of women in mathematics has increased dramatically since my high school days.  On of the important advocates is the Association for Women in Mathematics, founded in 1971, and often mentioned in this blog.  Here is a link to a poem that celebrates AWM.

Trying a Tritina

      Writer and scholar Marian Christie (born in Zimbabwe and now in Kent, England) has had a long term interest in mathematics and poetry and, during the last several years, she has created a blog -- Poetry and Mathematics -- in which she explores, with careful detail, some interesting and important links between these two arts.

     Christie's work has been featured several times in this blog and my posting today shows my attempt to learn from one of her postings.  At this link, on July 13, 2022, Christie posted "Turning in Circles -- the Tritina" and I have used her posting to learn the requirements for a tritina and, then, to try to write one.

     A tritina consists of ten lines -- three three-line stanzas with a final, separate line.  The stanzas have the same three end-words, rotated in the sequence 123, 312, 231, and a single final line containing all three end-words. 

     I have tried to write a tritina and offer my example below -- not because it is good but because it explores a pattern that I think might work well for students trying to write a poem in a math class.     

ARE THINGS DIFFERENT NOW IN SCHOOL?     a sample tritina     

Student Essay Contest -- Write about a Math-Woman

 Essay Contest -- Sponsored by AWM and Math for America

     Each year the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and Math for America  co-sponsor a contest for essays written about the lives and works of contemporary women mathematicians and statisticians in academic, industrial, and government careers. 

     Each essay should be based primarily on an interview with a woman currently working in or retired from a mathematical sciences career. Participation is open to three groups -- middle school, high school, and undergraduate students.  Submissions open December 1 and continue to February 1, 2023.  Complete submission information may be found at this link.   (AND, 2022 winning essays may be found here.)

     I close with a poem about a math-woman -- "San Antonio, January, 1993" -- a poem inspired by my time at a long-ago mathematics conference and included in a chapbook of my mathy poems, My Dance is Mathematics (available at this link). 

MacArthur Awards -- a Math-Woman, a Math-Poet

 SHE DOES MATH --

WE LIKE THAT! 

Recently the 2022 MacArthur Fellowship awards have been announced and the recipients include Melanie Matchett Wood of Harvard University, a a female mathematician who is a specialist in Number Theory and June Huh of Princeton University, a male mathematician who is credited with discovering underlying connections between disparate areas of mathematics and proving long-standing mathematical conjectures.  (This article about Huh tells of his high school ambition to be a poet BUT I have not been able to find online any of his poems.)

      While a high school student in Indianapolis,  Melanie Wood (then aged 16) became the first, and until 2004 the only female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team, receiving silver medals in the 1998 and 1999 International Mathematical Olympiad.

     In honor of Melanie Matchett Wood and her work in Number Theory, here are the several lines from a poem on that topic by noted Czech mathematician Olga Taussky-Todd (1906-1995). (The complete poem is available here.)

          Number theory is like poetry
          they are both of the same kind
          they start a fire in your mind.
          Number theory is not just clever and smart
          it has a beauty that fills your heart.

Einstein Defining Special Relativity

     Today I share a poem by poet A. Van Jordan that takes math-science terminology and mixes it into personal situations -- and offers varied ideas to consider.  Born in Ohio, Van Jordan became interested in poetry while studying for a masters degree at Howard University and attending readings in Washington, DC.  

Einstein Defining Special Relativity     by A. Van Jordan

INSERT SHOT: Einstein’s notebook 1905—DAY 1: a theory that is based on two postulates (a) that the speed of light in all inertial frames is constant, independent of the source or observer. As in, the speed of light emitted from the truth is the same as that of a lie coming from the lamp of a face aglow with trust, and (b) the laws of physics are not changed in all inertial systems, which leads to the equivalence of mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time; with increased velocity, space is compressed in the direction of the motion and time slows down. As when I look at Mileva, it’s as if I’ve been in a space ship traveling as close to the speed of light as possible, and when I return, years later, I’m younger than when I began the journey, but she’s grown older, less patient. Even a small amount of mass can be converted into enormous amounts of energy: I’ll whisper her name in her ear, and the blood flows like a mallet running across vibes. But another woman shoots me a flirting glance, and what was inseparable is now cleaved in two.

The poem above was found here at poets.org along with other samples of Van Jordan's work.  His poem "Quantum Lyrics" was included in this blog (at this link) back in February 2019.

Poetry and the Fields Medal

     It has been exciting to learn that a woman -- Maryna Viazovska of Ukraine -- has won a Fields Medal (often called "the Nobel prize of mathematics"); Viazovska is one of four persons who have been recognized (announced on June 5) for her outstanding contributions to mathematics.  Fields medals were first awarded in 1936 and are awarded every four years to up to four mathematicians under the age of forty.  The only other female mathematician who has received this award was Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014.

One of my syllable-squares

     Also of much interest to me concerning this year's Fields Medal winners is that one of them, June Huh, was in high school interested in becoming a poet -- and dropped out of school to pursue that goal.  Later, however, in his university years, Huh began to see his future in mathematics.

Winning Essays about Math Women

      The Association for Women in Mathematics each year sponsors an Essay Contest in which students (junior high, high school, and college) each interview a math-woman and write about it.  Contest winners for this year's contest have been announced and I invite you to go to this link -- to read well-written words about wonderful and inspiring women.

     One of the wonderful math-women in my life was Laura Church -- my teacher during my junior and senior years at Indiana Joint High School (in Indiana, PA) -- and here is a stanza that remembers her.

           Chalk in hand,
           she tosses her book,
           strides across the room,
           excited by trigonometry,
           excited that we,
           restless in our rows,
           caught some of it.
           Flamboyant, silver,
           fearless woman.

       This stanza is from "The Ones I Best Remember" -- the entire poem is found here.         More "girls and math" poems are at this link -- and the curious reader may browse or use this blog's SEARCH feature to find lots more!

Celebrate Amalie Emmy Noether

 On this date -- March 23, 1883 -- mathematician Emmy Noether was born:

       Emmy Noether's abstract axiomatic view
       changed the face of algebra.
       She helped us think in simple terms
       that flowered in their generality.  

The stanza above is from "My Dance is Mathematics" -- a poem of mine inspired by this bright and fearless mathematician.

Learn lots more about Noether at this link.

And, as we celebrate Noether, I urge more investigation and celebration of women in mathematics.  This link leads to a variety of sources -- and the blog SEARCH feature can be used for lots more.  For example, here are the results of a search for "math woman".

International Day of the Woman -- 03-08-2022

 Celebrate Math-Women with Poems

Throughout the history of mathematics, women have often been excluded or ignored.  This is changing.  I offer below some links to poems that herald math-women -- for you to enjoy and to share as we celebrate tomorrow  --  "International Day of the Woman." 

Celebrate Philippa Fawcett.          Celebrate Sophie Germain.

Celebrate Grace Murray Hopper.       Celebrate Katherine Johnson.

Celebrate Sophia Kovalevsky.          Celebrate Ada Lovelace.  

Celebrate Florence Nightingale.          Celebrate Emmy Noether.

And, as your time permits, browse this blog -- or SEARCH -- to find more . . .

Interview a Math Woman -- then Write and Win . . .

     Amalie "Emmy" Noether (1885-1932) is one of the outstanding mathematicians of all-time -- and yet, during her lifetime she got very little of the recognition that she deserved.

Consider these lines:
          Today history books proclaim that Noether
          is the greatest mathematician
          her sex has produced.  They say she was good --
          for a woman.                   a stanza from my poem "My Dance is Mathematics"

In the past, people both inside and outside of mathematics have discriminated against women and minorities -- but the Association for Women in Mathematics -- AWM -- works to change that.   One of their activities to increase awareness of math-woman and their achievements is an annual essay contest.

Here is this year's announcement:

To increase awareness of women’s ongoing contributions to mathematics, the Association for Women in Mathematics and Math for America are cosponsoring an essay contest for biographies based on interviews of women working in or retired from mathematical careers. The contest is open to students in Grades 6–8, Grades 9–12, and Undergraduate.    For more information, contact the organizer, Dr. Johanna Franklin, at johanna.n.franklin@hofstra.edu or see the contest webpage at
https://awm-math.org/awards/student-essay-contest/.   The deadline is February 1, 2022.

BRIDGES -- connecting math and poetry

     The BRIDGES Math-Arts organization held its 2021 conference (early in August) online  -- and, although many of the meetings were available only to registrants, archives of papers are available at this link to all who are interested.  

BRIDGES papers and events that link poetry and mathematics have been thoughtfully publicized by University of Connecticut emeritus professor Sarah Glaz who has created a webpage "Mathematical Poetry at Bridges" for that purpose.  On that webpage are links to pages for individual Bridges conferences as far back as 2010 -- with poetry involvement in the conferences increasing in the later years.  Here is a link to "Mathematical Poetry at Bridges 2021" -- a page with links to sample poems from more than 30 poets and also video readings of numerous poems.     VISIT the site and savor the poems.

Below I offer one of the poems from the Bridges 2021 site.  Playing with various ideas of "infinity" poet and math teacher Amy Uyematsu has created "This Thing Called Infinity" -- and she given me permission to offer it here. 

     This Thing Called Infinity     by Amy Uyematsu