Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Algebra (sort of) in a short story

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  Tomorrow I head to Baltimore for the BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference. Explore the conference program at this link .  Would love to see you...
2 comments:
Saturday, July 25, 2015

Math and Poetry and Climate

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Canadian poet Madhur Anand is also an Environmental Scientist; her love of nature and concerns for preserving a habitable climate pervade h...
Tuesday, July 21, 2015

The culture for women in math and the sciences

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Perhaps the phrase "ordinary" women scientists is an oxymoron -- but it should not be.  Women should be free to populate the full...
Sunday, July 19, 2015

Terror/Mathematics

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Several friends have sent me links to the poem " Terror/Mathematics " by Zeina Hashem Beck -- written after the beheading of 21 Ch...
Thursday, July 16, 2015

Celebrating Ada Lovelace

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Recently I have purchased the anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter:  Women Poets Occupying the Workplace (edited by Caroline Wright, M.L. Lyo...
Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Visual-mathematical poetry

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      The poems that I write and most of the poems that I include in this blog use mathematical patterns to structure their lines and stanza...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 11, 2015

Math fun with song lyrics

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Song-writer Bill Calhoun is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics at Pennsylvania's Bloom...
Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Things to Count On

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Tomorrow is my mother's birthday.  Born in 1912, she has been gone for several years now -- and tomorrow my sons and I will travel to In...
Monday, July 6, 2015

Counting Years -- in p'Bitek's Song of Lawino

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Okot p'Bitek (1931-1982) was a Ugandan poet; one of his central concerns was that African literature should be built on African rather ...
Friday, July 3, 2015

A Voice Meant to be Spoken

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     Last month the Library of Congress named a new poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera , a Californian and Mexican-American whose work often...
Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Sex, Maths, and the Brain

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I found this poetry in an abstract (with a link posted at "Women in Maths" on Facebook ) for a lecture by Professor Gina Rippon e...
Monday, June 29, 2015

Celebrating angles and rainbows . . .

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                              C          E        L        E        B   M A R R I A G E        A     A        T     Y     ...
Saturday, June 27, 2015

The power of eleven

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One of my recent poetry acquisition treasures is Measure for Measure:  An Anthology of Poetic Meters , edited by Annie Finch and Alexandra O...
Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Found poetry -- Mary Cartwright

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Recently I have been reading about mathematician Mary Cartwright (1900-1998) and working to develop a poem about her -- relying on a fine a...
Monday, June 22, 2015

Uncertainty . . .

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     Sometimes we find things of great value when we are looking for something else -- in fact, Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges has sai...
Sunday, June 21, 2015

Seeing the NEWS in square stanzas

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Reading today's Washington Post, a surprising statistic:                Sharks don't kill                as   many               ...
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Judith Grabiner and Howard Nemerov

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     Last evening at the Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the MAA it was my privilege to hear an outstanding presentation by Judit...
Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Imagine a Fractal

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California poet Carol Dorf is also a math teacher and is poetry editor of the online journal TalkingWriting .  In the most recent issue of...
Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Square stanzas for Women in Maths

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Women in Maths -- it all adds up.      Go here for "It All Adds Up" -- a story in plus Magazine by Rachel Thomas ...
Friday, June 5, 2015

A portrait of TB in numbers

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Poet Sarah Browning recently directed me to "Tuberculosis in Numbers," a fine poem by M. Brett Gaffney that appears in the latest...
Tuesday, June 2, 2015

17 syllables -- and other art

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What is he talking about?  What does he mean? The thought-provoking riddle posed by these 17 syllables (presented here as 3 square stanzas)...
Friday, May 29, 2015

Add and subtract to get . . . a minimalist poem

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Thinking today of poet Bob Grumman (1941-2015) with special gratitude for the way he expanded my poetic horizons.  For example, he introduc...
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Galileo in Florence

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Poetry found in the words of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands cont...
4 comments:
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

In the Tuscan sun

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View the statue in Pisa of Fibonacci, mathematician in the sun.  
Thursday, May 14, 2015

Sonnets from The Voyage of the Beagle

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 The sonnet is a song of the body as well as of the mind: 14 breaths     5 heartbeats each breath A few weeks ago I had the opportuni...
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Folk music -- counting syllables

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Learn about and support Women in Mathematics .   One place to do that is here .  Using 4x4 and 2x2 syllable-squares, I emphasize the ...
Sunday, May 10, 2015

Stars and men revolve in a cycle . . .

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In a book-discussion group in which I participate, we are reading some of the short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) and that readi...
Friday, May 8, 2015

Include Arts in STEM -- and have STEAM !

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Welcome to this blog where we support STEAM ! Visit YouTube for   math -student, performance- poet Harry Baker's  "A love...
Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Balancing Opposites -- Tagore's Epigrams

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Many important mathematical ideas occur as pairs of opposites:          -2 and +2 (additive inverses) , 5 and 1/5 (multiplicative inverses)...
Sunday, May 3, 2015

Lines of breathless length

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Brief reflections on definitions of LINE . . .           Breathless length      by JoAnne Growney           A LINE, said Euclid, lies ev...
1 comment:
Wednesday, April 29, 2015

A poem for your pocket

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Years ago, when "Poem in Your Pocket Day" (April 30) was first celebrated, we did not have cellphones to carry poems with us easil...
2 comments:
Saturday, April 25, 2015

Geometry of baseball

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Many poems are written of baseball; a few of them involve mathematics --  see the posting for April 9, 2010 for math-related baseball poems...
Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Earth Day -- April 22, 2015

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Consider today the thoughtful words of this sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950):      Read history: so learn your place in Time...
Sunday, April 19, 2015

April celebrates Math and Poetry

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     April is National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month . Yesterday I was able to attend several of the popular and crowded eve...
Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Remembering Abraham Lincoln

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Today -- April 14, 2015 -- marks the 150th birthday of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) and April 15 is the dat...
Saturday, April 11, 2015

Time is no straight line . . .

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Swedish poet and Nobel Laureate Tomas Transtromer (1931-2015) died last month. At his website I found this poem that reflects on the arith...
Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Man Ray's "Human Equations"

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     Art lovers in Washington, DC have the opportunity (until 5/10/15) to see, on exhibit at The Phillips Collection , "Man Ray -- Huma...
1 comment:
Friday, April 3, 2015

Mathematics and poetry -- are the same ! ! !

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Last week the Art Works Blog posted an interview with mathematician, poet, and translator, Enriqueta Carrington .  You will want to follow ...
2 comments:
Tuesday, March 31, 2015

April is . . . a time for math and poetry . . .

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     Once upon a time      I counted to the tenth prime      and found a word to rhyme. Tomorrow is not only April Fool's Day -- it...
1 comment:
Sunday, March 29, 2015

Science Verse

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Recently coincidence has brought to me two collections of poems about  science -- first, the 2014 issue of The Nassau Review , a gift from e...
Thursday, March 26, 2015

The problem of time

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Californian Brenda Hillman is a poet whose work I like and admire.  In "Time Problem" she weaves prime numbers into a deft descri...
Monday, March 23, 2015

March 23 -- Emmy Noether's birthday

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Today, March 23, 2015, Google celebrates the 133rd birthday of mathematician Emmy Noether .  In support of the celebration here is a link ...
Sunday, March 22, 2015

March 21 -- World Poetry Day

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Yesterday poetry was celebrated around the world -- the Guardian reported the event with mention of Cafés around the world that offered a ...
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Multiplied by Rain

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     There are many mathematical terms that are used in daily life -- not only multiplied and divided and negative but also closure and ...
Tuesday, March 17, 2015

A Russian toast (with mathematics)

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Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Washington Museum of Poetry and Music -- a collection in Rockville, MD gathered and ma...
Friday, March 13, 2015

Three Greguerías

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From Portugal, from Francisco -- who emailed me the gift of these lines: Three Greguerías   by Rámon Gómez de la Serna (1888-1963)   ...
2 comments:
Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Similar, self-similar -- fractals, a poem

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      In geometry two objects are said to be similar if they have the same shape --- which happens if their angles are the same size and oc...
Saturday, March 7, 2015

The mathematician, she . . . .

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     Tomorrow, March 8, is the International Day of the Woman -- and I celebrate the day with mixed feelings.  YES, there are many women I ...
Friday, March 6, 2015

Celebrate Pi -- write in Pilish

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On 3/14/15 many of us will celebrate  π - day; for those who like to gaze on the digits of  π ,  one hundred thousand of them are available...
Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Women in Maths -- on Facebook

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     Recently I prepared an item for Rachel Levy's Grandma Got STEM blog that told a bit about my granddaughters who like math.  My pre...
2 comments:
Saturday, February 28, 2015

Reflections on Logic

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Miroslav Holub (1923-1998), Czech poet and immunologist who excelled in both endeavors, is one of my favorite poets.  He combines scientifi...
Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Found poetry - words of Dirac

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The epigraph for Richard Bready's " Times of Sand " (a stanza of which I posted a few days ago on 21 February ) is a quote fro...
Saturday, February 21, 2015

How many grains of sand?

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     Sand beaches are places I love to walk.  Next to oceans and soft underfoot.  Below I post a stanza from Richard Bready's " ...
Monday, February 16, 2015

The numbers say it all . . .

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The title of my posting today, "The numbers say it all" comes from the final line of "After Leviticus," by Detroit poet ...
Friday, February 13, 2015

America, land of equals (perhaps)

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Preparing to celebrate (after Valentine's Day ) Presidents' Day , remembering particularly George Washington (b February 22, 1732) a...
Monday, February 9, 2015

Surreal parabola, Mobius strip

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     When a math term appears in a poem, will its usage make sense to a mathematician? Some mathematical folks are critical of poetic use o...