Monday, June 7, 2010

Celebrate Martin Gardner (1914-2010)

›
Martin Gardner described his relationship to poetry as that of "occasional versifier" -- he is the author, for example, of:    ...
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Discovering the Secret

›
In this Robert Frost couplet, “The Secret Sits,”  the poet may not have intended to speak of mathematics but his lines sing true for mathem...
1 comment:
Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Glances at Infinity

›
Counter-intuitive notions are among my favorite parts of mathematics and, in considerations of infinity, these are numerous.  Recalling Zeno...
Monday, May 17, 2010

Sense and Nonsense

›
     Nonsense verse has a prominent place in the poetry that mathematicians enjoy. Perhaps this is so because mathematical discovery itself...
Friday, May 14, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 6 (Mandelbrot)

›
More familiar than the name Benoit Mandelbrot are images, like the one to the left, of the fractal that bears his name .  Born in Poland ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The epitome -- Euler's Identity

›
Mathematics is a visual language.  As with poetry, placement on the page is a key ingredient of meaning.  Here is one of my favorite visual ...
Monday, May 10, 2010

Margaret Cavendish (1623-73) -- The Circle of the Brain cannot be Squared

›
Margaret Cavendish (1623-73) was a writer who published under her own name at a time when most women published anonymously.  Her writing ad...
Thursday, May 6, 2010

Mathematical 'grooks' from Piet Hein

›
Piet Hein (Denmark, 1905-1996) was many-faceted--by times a philosopher, mathematician, designer, scientist, inventor of games and poet. He...
Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 5

›
In my own library this next poem is found (untitled) in Collected Sonnets by Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950),  but it also is found onl...
Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Numerical Poem (Fibonacci)

›
Consider the following poem involving the Fibonacci numbers:           1/89 = .0        +                   .01        +                   ...
2 comments:
Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 4

›
Each of today's poems is in the voice of a student who looks back.  First, from Carol Dorf, a poem to the author of a book--written as a...
Monday, April 26, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 3

›
Today's poems illustrate the satirical humor and rhyme that frequently inhabit poems by mathematicians. (Previous postings of poems abou...
Friday, April 23, 2010

Poems of Calculus

›
In her thoughtful poem " Calculus " mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz writes of sharing with her students some of their subject...
Thursday, April 22, 2010

A Square for Earth Day

›
Greetings on EARTH DAY.  Earth's inhabitants today pay a price not only for our own careless habits but also for earlier ignorance about...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

April -- Poetry, Math, and Boxing

›
April continues—both as National Poetry Month and as Mathematics Awareness Month (with theme math and sports ).  As in the April 9 posting...
Monday, April 19, 2010

Poems with Fibonacci number patterns

›
In 21st century poetry, there are a variety of non-rhyming forms--and several of them have derived from the Fibonacci numbers. *  The Danis...
5 comments:
Thursday, April 15, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 2

›
P ublished a century later than William Benjamin Smith's "The Merman and the Seraph" (see April 14 posting ) we have Crossing ...
2 comments:
Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians - 1

›
This is the first in a series of postings involving poems in which the principal subject is a mathematician.      In “The Ideal Mathematic...
1 comment:
Monday, April 12, 2010

Poetry and Mathematics -- Similarities

›
HOW are mathematics and poetry similar? Often-quoted in mathematical circles are words from mathematician Karl Weierstrass (1815-97)...
2 comments:
Friday, April 9, 2010

April: along with baseball we celebrate poetry and mathematics

›
Is it coincidence or design that       April  is   National Poetry Month                          and    April  is  Mathematics Awaren...
5 comments:
Thursday, April 8, 2010

Braided lines form a PANTOUM

›
The pantoum is derived from a Malaysian form of interlocking four-line stanzas in which lines 2 and 4 of one stanza are used as lines 1 and...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010

John Donne's numbers

›
       Perhaps best known for the religious themes in his poetry, John Donne (1572-1631) also wrote many love poems. Although the mathematic...
2 comments:
Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Miroslav Holub, poet and scientist

›
Miroslav Holub (1923-1998), Czech poet and immunologist who excelled in both endeavors, is one of my favorite poets.  He combines scientif...
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...
5 comments:
Sunday, March 28, 2010

W. H. Auden's Kingdom of Number

›
Some poetry is termed "mathematical" because mathematical terminology is included in the text of the poem, often to vivid effect. ...
3 comments:
Thursday, March 25, 2010

Queneau and the Oulipo

›
Raymond Queneau was one of the leaders of a group of ten--primarily writers and mathematicians, primarily French--who founded a group, ...
3 comments:
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Howard Nemerov's mathematical imagery

›
GETTING IT RIGHT IN LANGUAGE -- Poets and mathematicians alike are concerned with precise statement. Two-time US Poet Laureate Howard Nemero...
1 comment:
Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Poetry of Logical Ideas

›
When the NY Times failed to publish an obituary following the death of noted algebraist Amalie "Emmy" Noether , Albert Einstein c...
3 comments: