Tuesday, July 31, 2012

For Hazlett -- an Exquisite Corpse poem

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At the recent  BRIDGES Math-Art Conference at Towson University, I led a Sunday afternoon Poetry-with-Mathematics Workshop .  One of our wr...
Saturday, July 28, 2012

Math super-hero

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One day not long ago I told my Silver Spring neighbor, Nancy KapLon (nee Lon), of my interest in helping outstanding math-women to be more ...
Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Math-women -- snowballing . . .

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These syllable-snowball poems (increasing by one syllable from line to line) note a few of the (living) math-women I admire.   They are ...
Saturday, July 21, 2012

She had a way with numbers

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In Letters from a Floating World , artist and poet Siv Cedering (1939-2007) has given us a poignant portrait of astronomer (and math-woman) ...
Tuesday, July 17, 2012

An algorithm shapes a poem

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Mathematics sometimes appears in poetry via patterns that follow the Fibonacci numbers . The pattern of Pascal's triangle also has been...
Saturday, July 14, 2012

More of Hypatia -- brave, smart woman

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Poet and blogger Ellen Moody offers a lively and informative feature on poet Elizabeth Tollett (1694-1754) ; Tollett, too, wrote of forebe...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 11, 2012

She died for mathematics

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     Hypatia of Alexandria (in Greek: Υπατία) (c. 370 C.E. – 415 C.E.) was a popular Egyptian female philosopher, mathematician, astronomer...
1 comment:
Sunday, July 8, 2012

What are the chances?

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Ohioan Miles David Moore is an active participant in Washington, DC literary activities, including a reading series at Arlington's Iot...
Thursday, July 5, 2012

Visit BRIDGES -- for (art and) poetry

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This growing-then-melting syllable-snowball poem is offered in recognition of mathematician-and-poet Sarah Glaz and as a reminder of the po...
Tuesday, July 3, 2012

SHE can solve any equation!

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Today's New York Times offers a tribute to Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus , a professor emerita of physics and engineering at MIT.  The T...
Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Emily Dickinson -- and circumference

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     Great poets may be investigated from many points of view.  For Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), some have noticed that her work employs p...
Sunday, June 24, 2012

Remembering Sophia Kovalevsky

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With Reason: A Portrait       by JoAnne Growney   (June 2012 )         Sophia Kovalevsky *    (1850-1891 ) Because she was Russian  . ...
1 comment:
Thursday, June 21, 2012

Seeking poems about math-women

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In this blog I have previously posted poems that speak of the lives of these math-women:      Sophie Germain (1776-1831)      Floren...
Monday, June 18, 2012

Sophie Germain dressed as a man to study math

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One of the fine sources for biographies and other topics in the history of mathematics is MacTutor History of Mathematics archive , hosted...
Friday, June 15, 2012

Can mathematics maximize happiness?

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     My post for last Monday ( 11 June 2012 ) offered a link I would like to repeat :  to an article by Judy Green , " How Many Wome...
Monday, June 11, 2012

Think Like a Man

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     To publish mathematics,      a woman must learn to think      like a man, learn to write like      a man, to use only her      ini...
2 comments:
Friday, June 8, 2012

Computer code -- is poetry?

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Dubliner Eavan Boland is a master poet (and one of my favorites); Ireland shares her with the creative writing program at Stanford Universi...
5 comments:
Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Sum of moments

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Here is a 3x3 square poem -- inspired by a recently-found margin-note I made in Differential and Integral Calculus (by Ross R Middlemiss )...
Sunday, June 3, 2012

Counting the dead

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This poem by Joan Mazza heightens the impact of war-data by bringing it into the kitchen and the office -- juxtaposing war-numbers with t...
Thursday, May 31, 2012

Arithmetic of war

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     In his poem, "Arithmetic on the Frontier," Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) wrote of Britain's nineteenth century military a...
Monday, May 28, 2012

Remembering Israel Lewis Schneider

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     On Monday, October 17, 2011, Israel Lewis Schneider (1924-2011) --  Silver Spring poet and mechanical engineer -- passed away .  I di...
2 comments:
Saturday, May 26, 2012

Crocheting mathematics

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Charlotte Henderson majored in mathematics and English at Wellesley College and has applied her dual interests as an editor for A K Peters, ...
Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Taking Stock

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Developing an inventory -- of what we have or have experienced, of what we see or imagine -- inevitably involves numbers and counting.  As i...
Sunday, May 20, 2012

Before calculators we did more counting!

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One of many sources of good poetry online is American Life in Poetry , collected by former U S Poet Laureate Ted Kooser .  In Column 368 , ...
Thursday, May 17, 2012

Natural numbers

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     My just-previous posting tells of a Monday poetry reading I was able to attend.  On Monday, May 14, a poetry reading took place that ...
Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Poetry in DC -- counting sheep

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The Washington, DC area offers a rich diversity of poetry events -- workshops and readings, contests and conferences.  An excellent way to ...
Saturday, May 12, 2012

Ode to Alan Turing

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In this week of announcements in the US about evolving views concerning human sexual preferences, it seems fit to offer a second poem (see a...
Wednesday, May 9, 2012

A toast to Alan Turing

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     Alan Turing (1912-1954) committed suicide at the age of 42. He was brilliant, arguably the best computer scientist of the twentieth c...
Sunday, May 6, 2012

A square -- for everyone!

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all     all all     all This square pun by Aram Saroyan appears in his Complete Minimal Poems   ( Ugly Duckling Pr...
Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pipher -- Math experiments, Pi

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     'Tis a favorite project of mine      A new value of pi to assign.           I would fix it at 3           For it's sim...
Monday, April 30, 2012

What do we do with these numbers?

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During March 22-25, 2012 I participated in the Split This Rock Poetry Festival .  One of the fine poets I met there was Oregon poet and tea...
1 comment:
Friday, April 27, 2012

Poetry with Math -- BRIDGES 2012, Limericks

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During July 25-29, 2012, Towson University will be hosting BRIDGES 2012 , a mathematics-and-the-arts interdisciplinary conference. This yea...
1 comment:
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Macbeth and Probability

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     Kansas City educator Michael Round of the Center for autoSocratic Excellence has developed a host of math teaching tools -- and withi...
Saturday, April 21, 2012

Statistics -- math to improve man's lot

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Today's poem honors nurse and statistician Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) and is found in a fine poetry collection by Mary Alexandra...
1 comment:
Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Following Euler in Koenigsberg

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     The Köenigsberg Bridges have an important link to mathematics -- for mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) took a legendary Köenigs...
Sunday, April 15, 2012

Statistics -- a lament

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     Helping me to continue to connect National Poetry Month with Mathematics Awareness Month (with its theme of "Mathematics, Statist...
1 comment:
Thursday, April 12, 2012

Math or poetry -- must one choose?

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April celebrates poetry and mathematics -- it being both National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month -- and this year's mat...
Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Navigating this blog . . .

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     A query from a helpful reader has reminded me that it can be difficult to navigate a blog because new entries hide old ones.  If you s...
Saturday, April 7, 2012

A septina ("Safety in Numbers") -- and variations

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Recall that a sestina is a 39 line poem of six 6-line stanzas followed by a 3-line stanza.  The 6-line stanzas have lines that end in the ...
Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Start with a number . . .

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     April celebrates both poetry and mathematics -- this month that is the gateway to spring is also National Poetry Month and Mathematic...
Monday, April 2, 2012

Valley Voices

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With Richard Aston I share a love for science and logic, a love for poetry, and a love for the Susquehanna Valley.  His home is Wilkes-Bar...
Thursday, March 29, 2012

Celebrate Emmy Noether

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     On 23 March 1882 mathematician Emmy Noether (pronounced NER-ter) was born.  On 23 March 2010  I posted the first entry in this blog  --...
Monday, March 26, 2012

Poems with Numbers

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      Hats off to the organizers and presenters at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival held in DC this past weekend.  Great poets, gr...
Friday, March 23, 2012

Round

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Round      by  Russell Edson       Where there is no shape there is round.  Round has no shape; no more than a raindrop or a human tear ...
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A Prayer of Numbers

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     Whether our language is music or mathematics, computer code or cookery --  as we learn to love the language and treat it with good car...
Saturday, March 17, 2012

Illness and Time -- Counting on

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One of life's special opportunities came to me ten years ago in Bucharest when I had the opportunity to meet poet Ileana Mălăncioiu an...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Verses that count

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At about.com one finds a variety of information -- from the dates of the rapidly approaching 2012 Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC...
Sunday, March 11, 2012

Chatting about REAL numbers

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The term " real number " confuses many who are not immersed in mathematics.  For these, to whom 1, 2, 3 and the other counting ...
1 comment:
Thursday, March 8, 2012

Mathematics in Romanian poetry

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     When I first visited Romania, I met Doru Radu, then a teacher of English at Scoala Generala "Andre Muresanu" in Deva. And Do...
Monday, March 5, 2012

Poetic Explorations of . . . Mathematicians

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In the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics ( Volume 1, Issue 2 ), we find "Numen R ology: A Poetic Exploration of the Lives and Work of ...
Friday, March 2, 2012

Seeing Distance -- geometry in photography

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One of my favorite poem-stanza styles is a syllable-square -- it distributes the weights of the words in a way that pleases me. The poem bel...
Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Chaos and Order -- Stevens

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An article by Jeff Gordinier, " For Wallace Stevens, Hartford as Muse ," in the Travel Section of last Sunday's NY Times give...
Friday, February 24, 2012

Universal and Particular -- Szymborska

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Like Yves Bonnefoy ( 21 February 2012 posting), Wislawa Szymborska  ( who died on  1 February 2012 ) was born in 1923.  Like him she was co...
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Universal and Particular

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Poet Yves Bonnefoy (b 1923) is one of France's greatest living poets. And Bonnefoy's university studies included mathematics. I rea...
Saturday, February 18, 2012

Langston Hughes could do anything!

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In the 1970s when I was a new professor (at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg University), a particular colleague and I would chat occasionally ...
Thursday, February 16, 2012

2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival -- March 22-25

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Earlybird registration ends February 22 for the 2012 Split this Rock Poetry Festival in Washington, DC, March 22-25.  Honoring poet June Jo...
Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Counting (with sadness) in Syria

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Burmese poet ko ko thett is an activist-scholar and, at present, a resident of Vienna, Austria. I became acquainted with his work through ...
Sunday, February 12, 2012

Be My Valentine

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Unlike many newspapers, the British Guardian  publishes poems -- and, on February 10, 2012, they offered a selection to celebrate the upcomi...
Friday, February 10, 2012

Recursion

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A mathematician may face a dilemma over the meaning of an ordinary term -- for words like "group" and "identity" and ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Is Math for Women?

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At a River Poets reading at the public library in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania on December 1, 2011, Carol Ann Heckman surprised me with her poe...
Sunday, February 5, 2012

Strength from Numbers

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During March 22-25, 2012, the third Split This Rock Poetry Festival:  Poems of Provocation and Witness will be held in Washington, DC. This...
Thursday, February 2, 2012

Szymborska (1923-2012) on Statistics

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Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)  won the 1996 Nobel Prize for literature; I am saddened by her death -- yesterday, February 1, ...
Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Counting Groundhogs

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     I grew up in a town about 25 miles from Punxsutawney, PA -- and Groundhog Day on February 2 was local-news only. This was the quiet t...
Sunday, January 29, 2012

Juxtaposition

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One of my favorite phrases (loved for the sound of it) first came to my ears during my college studies of  abstract algebra: " multipl...
Thursday, January 26, 2012

Counting the seconds -- and leap seconds

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      Keeping time is a simple matter of counting -- counting seconds, summing them into minutes, hours, days. Or is it? Recent news has i...