Monday, July 18, 2016

String Theory

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     String Theory is a theoretical framework that attempts to explain, among other things, quantum gravity.  Its basic elements are open a...
Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Continue to celebrate Szymborska

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If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you know that Polish Nobelist (1996) Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012) is one of my favorite poets...
Thursday, July 7, 2016

Remembering Reza Sarhangi

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     In 1998 at Southwestern College in Winfield, KS an Iranian mathematician, Reza Sarhangi , organized the first of a series of annual Bri...
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Tuesday, July 5, 2016

What Math Teachers Do

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     They ignore me.  I      raise my hand -- wave it      to ask questions, to      offer answers -- but      they call on the boys. ...
Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Revolutions and singularities

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     Early in June it was my privilege to hear poet Lesley Wheeler read as part of the Joaquin Miller Poetry Series on summer Sundays in W...
Sunday, June 26, 2016

Important online sources for mathy poems

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Every issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics contains poetry. The Spring 2016 issue of TalkingWriting has more than a score of ...
Friday, June 24, 2016

Exponential power

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From this week's New Yorker (June 27, 2016) from a poem by Maya Ribault entitled "Society of Butterflies" this mat hy statem...
Thursday, June 23, 2016

A sonnet with numbers

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     Sonnet: Now I see them     by Michael Palmer           Now I see them sitting me before a mirror.           There’s noise and laught...
Monday, June 20, 2016

Wanting things proportional . . .

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Here is a reflective poem by San Diego poet Ben Doller (found also at Poets.org and included here with permission of the poet).        P...
Thursday, June 16, 2016

Women occupy mathematics

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     Poems thrive on imagery created from specific (rather than vague) details -- and numbers and other math terms are very specific!  Below...
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Monday, June 13, 2016

When parallel lines meet, that is LOVE

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Bernadette Turner teaches mathematics at Lincoln University in Missouri. And, via a long-ago email (lost for a while, and then found) she h...
Thursday, June 9, 2016

Symbols shape our thoughts

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     In mathematics -- as in spoken languages -- we have learned to use symbols to shape our thoughts.  Pioneering artist Marcel Duchamp (1...
Monday, June 6, 2016

A poem, a contradiction . . .

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     One stra tegy for proving a mathemat ical theorem is a " proof by contradiction ."  In such a proof one begins by supposing t...
Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Aesop's fables in verse ... the price of greed ...

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     The farmhouse* in which I grew up had a room we called "The Library" because of its small bookshelf with my father's book...
Thursday, May 26, 2016

Mathy poems OUT LOUD

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     Here is a link to "Applied Mathematics" written and recited by London poet Dan Simpson .   This link leads to several math-a...
Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The Man Who Knew Infinity

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     A few days ago I followed a broken link on the Poetry Foundation website and the site offered me this cryptic quatrain by American po...
Friday, May 20, 2016

In Wyalusing, counting pelicans

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     The number in the title of Robin Chapman 's poem first attracted me to it and the mention of Wyalusing in the first line drew me fu...
Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A math problem or a word problem?

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     One of my recent poetry-finds has been the anthology Regreen:  New Canadian Ecological Poetry , edited by Madhur Anand and Adam Dickin...
Monday, May 16, 2016

Squaring the Circle -- from the POETRY App

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     One of my smart-phone delights is the App (available from PoetryFoundation.org)  that gives me a selection of poems on the go. (My post...
Tuesday, May 10, 2016

A 6 x 6 syllable-square -- and links to more . . .

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          Last Sunday's paper had           an essay by a clown           who said as long as I           play dumb people let me  ...
Friday, May 6, 2016

Poems that count: Eight Buffalo

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     In mid-April at the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, one of the sessions I attended and valued had the title " "Eco-Feminis...
Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Can you multiply with Roman numerals?

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     Canadian writer Siobhan Roberts (whom I know from BIRS workshops) has a recent New Yorker article that celebrates the 100th birthda...
Thursday, April 28, 2016

Talking-Writing offers Math Poems

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     In recent weeks, the online journal Talking-Writing has been featuring math poems and last Monday they posted my " Skagway Study ...
Monday, April 25, 2016

"The Mathematician"

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     Here is a selection from "The Mathematician," a long poem -- found in its entirety in The Rumpus -- by  Oregon poet Carl Ada...
Thursday, April 21, 2016

Women in Mathematics Count!

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     The theme for 2016 Mathematics Awareness Month is "The Future of Prediction."  And today I am wondering what date can be p...
Monday, April 18, 2016

Remembering Solomon Marcus

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     Almost five years ago I received an email from Romanian mathematician Solomon Marcus in response to my posting of a translation of  a...
Friday, April 15, 2016

From a math-friend and an Ohio poet

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     One of the wonderful things about writing a blog about my paired passions of poetry and mathematics is that the blog connects me with f...
Wednesday, April 13, 2016

"The Giraffe" -- a poem for my pocket

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     I've found the poem I want to carry in my pocket (and in my head) on " Poem in Your Pocket Day " -- coming soon on April ...
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Monday, April 11, 2016

A Diagonal . . . and so little time . . .

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On my mind in recent days is the problem of "so little time."  About a year ago I posted a wonderful mathy poem by Californian Bre...
Thursday, April 7, 2016

"The Computation"

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     Here is a favorite poem of mine -- and it available with many others in the anthology, Strange Attractors:  Poems of Love and Mathemati...
Thursday, March 31, 2016

The Future of Prediction

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     As well as being National Poetry Month, April is Mathematics Awareness Month and this year's theme is " The Future of Predict...
Monday, March 28, 2016

Contemplating the heavens

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English writer G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a poet but was better known for his pithy sayings.   For example, we have the following st...
Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Shape of the World -- a dream of equality

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     One of the most vital components of the Washington DC poetry scene is Split This Rock -- an  organization that speaks and acts against...
Monday, March 21, 2016

World Poetry Day -- Celebrate favorites!

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     Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave      Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;        Quietly they go, the...
Friday, March 18, 2016

Poems that Count

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On January 6 of this year I attended a wonderful poetry reading (sponsored by The Word Works ) that featured the work of poets Tera Ragan a...
Wednesday, March 16, 2016

A poem is an equation?

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     Exiled Romanian poet Nina Cassian (1924-2014) spoke with a daring and imaginative voice that I have much admired.  And she occasionall...
Friday, March 11, 2016

Celebrate Math Women

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     March is Women's History Month and, although this year's theme focuses on women in public service and government , my own thou...