Thursday, December 31, 2015

Precision leads to poetry . . .

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As the year ends, a quote from one of my once-favorite authors, Don DeLillo (in correspondence with David Foster Wallace -- whose Infinite ...
Monday, December 28, 2015

Can a woman learn science (or mathematics)?

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It is not a new idea that women do not have scientific aptitude, that teaching them requires special accommodation.  Here, in a poem by one ...
Thursday, December 24, 2015

And now welcome Christmas . . .

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Let us sing . . . (a version of)  The Twelve Days of Christmas           The twelfth day of Christmas.           My true love gave to ...
Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Let us not forget . . .

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At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, many are without shelter -- and are cold.  Let us think of them  -- as Cecil Day-Lewis (190...
Sunday, December 20, 2015

Who put the pie in Pythagoras?

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Irish poet and physicist Iggy McGovern has written both humorous and serious verse.  Today we have lines from him that startle and amuse -...
Friday, December 18, 2015

A student writes poetry for a math class . . .

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A recent fun experience for me has been correspondence with Melanie Simms , a poet and math student at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg Univers...
Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Generalized Pythagorean Theorem--a visual poem?

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While thinking about my December 13 posting featuring work by Richard Kostelanetz -- visual poetry with numbers -- I was browsing a fascina...
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Sunday, December 13, 2015

Visual poems with numbers

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     I have a good friend who does not care for the sorts of poetry that are written today.  When I asked what he likes he cited " When...
Friday, December 11, 2015

Alphamath - poetry built on 4, 8

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Since the late 1960s Toronto poet Victor Coleman has been energetically committed to innovated poetic practices.  A fine introduction to th...
Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Colorful mathematics for your smartphone

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     "Bhaskara II (1114-1185) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer. He composed the Siddhanta Siromani , a treatise in four parts...
Sunday, December 6, 2015

This blog (then and now) and Pascal

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     When I began this blog in 2010, I imagined up to 100 postings -- I saw it as a way to share math-related poetry that I had written an...
Thursday, December 3, 2015

Which hat? (from Slovenia)

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     For a long time I have highly valued the work of Eastern European poets -- including Wislawa Szymborska , Miroslav Holub , Nichita Stan...
Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Are we speaking of "mathematics" or "poetry"?

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     This week started with the excitement of an email message from Evelyn Lamb with a link to her Scientific American blog where she crea...
Monday, November 30, 2015

Sustainability needs the arts AND mathematics . . .

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The following poem is by Erica Jolly -- an Australian poet and retired teacher who is working hard to have the arts and the sciences integr...
Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Thanksgiving, 2015

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Thinking toward Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, I am grateful for  --  in addition to my children and grandchildren who will gather --  all ...
Monday, November 23, 2015

Quoting Isaac Newton . . . . a "found" poem

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     I do not know what      I may appear to the world;      but to myself I seem to have been      only like a boy playing on the seash...
Thursday, November 19, 2015

Axiom: A Mathematics of Poetry

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Today in a Facebook posting by Susanne Pumpluen  I learned of Discov-her , an online journal  featuring stories about women in Scienc...
Monday, November 16, 2015

Encouragement from fathers, a second view

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     Despite the importance of fathers' encouragement (as noted in my post on 13 November ), some women oppose their fathers' views....
Friday, November 13, 2015

Encouragement from fathers

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     It was my observation as a professor in a mostly-male mathematics department that the men who joined me in supporting opportunities for...
Monday, November 9, 2015

Limericks for Hedy Lamarr

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     When seeking to draft a poem quickly, it is useful to have some sort of pattern to follow -- a pattern helping to dictate word choice. ...
Thursday, November 5, 2015

It is clear that . . .

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     " If I stand "      by Inger Christensen   (Denmark, 1935-2009)                If I stand                alone in the snow...
Monday, November 2, 2015

Artificial Intelligence in the Library . . .

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     Libraries are wonderful places and library book sales are temptations impossible to resist -- and so, during a recent trip to Boston an...
Thursday, October 29, 2015

Mathematics and Poetry ARE Similar

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        A recent email request sent me looking for a one-page article / quiz I had published in the American Mathematical Monthly in 1992 -...
Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The magic of mathematics (in art)

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     Australian teacher and  poet Erica Jolly is convinced that breaking down the barriers that make silos of sciences and humanities subj...
Friday, October 23, 2015

JMM Seattle, 1-7-16 -- Poetry+Math+Art

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 Read your mathy poems in Seattle ! An invitation to participate -- in January!   Read on!  ANNOUNCING Poetry + Art + Math  January ...
Monday, October 19, 2015

Celebrating waves of light . . .

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     On October 8, Scotland's celebration of National Poetry Day had the theme "Light."  An online collection of themed poems...
Thursday, October 15, 2015

Use a phone App to find mathy poems

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A day late, Happy Birthday, E. E. Cummings   (b 14 October 1894, d 3 September 1962).      One of my favorite poetry sites is PoetryF...
Thursday, October 8, 2015

Daughter and Father - a warm geometry . . .

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     Kate Stange is a mathematician -- from the Canadian province of Ontario and now at the University of Colorado -- whose father, Ken Sta...

Toward Infinity . . .

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     During summer teaching opportunities a dozen or more years ago in Deva, Romania I met Doru Radu who taught English there -- and our mut...
Sunday, October 4, 2015

A mathematician's favorite poet

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     A summertime gift book that I have much enjoyed reading is Love & Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel (Basic Book...
Monday, September 28, 2015

A subtraction problem

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Let's solve this subtraction problem:                     Women do the job             minus    the recognition.                  ...
Thursday, September 24, 2015

C K Williams -- Three Mile Island

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A poet whose work I have long enjoyed, C K Williams   (1936-1915), died a few days ago.  (You may find a generous sample of his poems online...
Monday, September 21, 2015

Choosing what words mean . . .

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     Nineteenth century writer and mathematician Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) gave his character, Humpty Dumpty, these words :  "When I u...
Friday, September 18, 2015

Words of Ada Lovelace

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The se po etic words of Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) -- concerning translation of mathematical principles into practical forms -- I found here ...
Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Shaping sentences with Fibonacci numbers . . .

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Counting words . . ..        1                 One      1                person      2                with courage      3              ...