Wednesday, March 31, 2021

2000 plastic bags in the stomach of a camel!

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     When creating a poem, I often find that first choosing a pattern of syllable counts can be very helpful in guiding me into careful word...
Monday, March 29, 2021

A Poetry Cube

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      Gregory Coxson , professor and researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the US Naval Academy, is a supp...
Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Happy Birthday, Amalie "Emmy" Noether!

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      Emmy Noether (1882-1935) is one of my heroes -- and my first posting in this blog , on March 23, 2010, celebrates her -- as do a bunc...
1 comment:
Sunday, March 21, 2021

UNESCO World Poetry Day

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     TODAY, March 21 is UNESCO World Poetry Day:  click on this link for a wealth of information and poetry resources:  UNESCO Creative Citi...
Thursday, March 18, 2021

Probe the gaps between prime numbers . . .

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     Each issue of The New Yorker offers poetry, but seldom do the poems link to mathematics.  However, the issue for March 8, 2021 offers ...
Monday, March 15, 2021

Thoughtful Poetic Paradox . . .

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     Recently, looking through old piles, I found an article of mine that appeared almost twenty years ago in The Humanistic Mathematics Ne...
Thursday, March 11, 2021

MATH-GIRL gives us Pi

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     Sunday, 3/14, will be Pi-day and I celebrate here with a comment in Pilish from my imagined author MATH-GIRL.  And before the poetic w...
3 comments:
Monday, March 8, 2021

Internat'l Day of the Woman--Name 5 Math-Women!

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      Today, March 8, is International Day of the Woman for 2021.  I continue to consider the challenge that I heard offered lots of years...
1 comment:
Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Free Minds add, count . . . and . . .

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     Free Minds is an organization that uses books, creative writing, and peer support to awaken incarcerated and formerly incarcerated you...
Monday, March 1, 2021

Celebrating Math-Women -- Caroline Herschel

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      In the United States, March is National Women's History Month -- and today I am looking back to previous postings that celebrate a...
Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Filling my coffee cup . . .

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      When I am asked to give a poetry workshop that includes people who have not written poetry, I find that asking them to concentrate on ...
Monday, February 22, 2021

In the Space of Certain Dimensions

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Browsing at Poets.org I found this fascinating poem by Anne Tardos and she has give me permission to post it here.      NINE, 40       by ...
Thursday, February 18, 2021

Mathematician, astronomer, poet -- and female

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 An amazing woman -- Wang Zhenyi !      In this article in April Magazine , we can learn of her achievements:     Born in 1768 in a family ...
Monday, February 15, 2021

Measure the Skies

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     Born around 1753, Phillis Wheatley was the first enslaved black poet in America to publish a book.  Here is a stanza from her poem, ...
Friday, February 12, 2021

Valentine Haiku

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     Since 2011 February has been National Haiku Writing Month ( NaHaiWriMo) ; serious celebration of this event requires writing a Haiku ea...
Thursday, February 11, 2021

A Math-Poetry Essay -- in the Time of Corona

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     Springer Publishing is developing an e-book, Mathematics in the Time of Corona , an online collection of various reactions to the pande...
Monday, February 8, 2021

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics -- new issue

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      Recently released, Issue 1 of Volume 11 (2021) of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics ;  in it Editors Mark Huber and Gizem Karaali ...
Thursday, February 4, 2021

Poetry from a Math Professor in China

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  Does our language shape our thoughts? Professor Ya Shi – a pen name meaning “mute stone” – teaches university-level mathematics in his ho...
Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Celebrate Black History with Poetry

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     In February now, Black History Month, I look back to one of my favorite poets, Langston Hughes (1902-1967) and bring to you, again, one...
Monday, February 1, 2021

What will the groundhog predict?

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     Having grown up in western Pennsylvania, not far from Punxsutawney, I have long been interested in Groundhog Day -- on February 2, a l...
1 comment:
Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Today, January 27, is Holocaust Remembrance Day .  Looking for mathy poems to connect to this theme I found this posting at jstheater.blogsp...
Monday, January 25, 2021

The Fruits of Undefinitions

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     The poem "Undefined Terms" by poet-mathematician Katharine O'Brien (1901-1986) is a favorite of mine from long ago that ...
Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Inauguration Day Poem

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 Read by Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman , an inspiring Biden-inauguration poem, " The Hill We Climb ." " . . . we lift o...
Monday, January 18, 2021

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr

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       Today as a nation we remember and pay tribute to Rev.  Martin Luther King, Jr . (1929-1968) -- Baptist minster, Civil Rights leader -...
Thursday, January 14, 2021

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2021

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Learn more here:  http://bridgesmathart.org/   Since 2009, interested contributors from mathematics and various arts -- poetry, music, thea...
Monday, January 11, 2021

Number Personalities . . .

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      Sometimes our experiences with objects or ideas leads us to assign them personalities -- a notion illustrated in the poem "Zero,...
Thursday, January 7, 2021

Poetic Mathy Quotes

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      In India, National Mathematics Day is celebrated each year on December 22 -- the birthday of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-...
Monday, January 4, 2021

Numbers and Faces, a math-poetry anthology

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 Celebrating the NEW year with a collection of OLD favorites!       Twenty years ago in 2001, supported by a grant from EXXONMOBIL, the Huma...
1 comment:
Wednesday, December 30, 2020

The Doomsday Rule

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     My recently posted mention of Tristian Bangert's poem about John Horton Conway (1937-2020) sent me looking through my files for m...
Monday, December 28, 2020

Geometry Personalities

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  When a triangle talks to a square, what does she say? Among my favorites of mathy poems are poems by Guillevic (1907-1997) -- in which ...
Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Counting Syllables for Christmas

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     As I look ahead toward Christmas, I shape my thoughts into words with syllable-counts that match the Fibonacci numbers. Holiday musing ...
Monday, December 21, 2020

Admiring John Conway with stories of numbers

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     Recently I was contacted by Thomas Barr, Director of Programs at the American Mathematical Society who told me of poetry written by a ...
Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Proofs in Poems -- the Sylow Theorems

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     One of my valuable resources during this year 2020 has been the AMS PAGE A DAY CALENDAR by Evelyn Lamb -- published by the American Mat...
1 comment:
Monday, December 14, 2020

Solving problems -- crimes and mathematics

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     In childhood I loved novels that featured the girl-detective, Nancy Drew, and in adulthood I have continued to enjoy crime-solving fict...
Thursday, December 10, 2020

How should a professor groom for math class?

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     One of the rewards of many new endeavors is making new friends -- and one of the special connections I have made through math-poetry en...
Monday, December 7, 2020

Gatherings of a retired teacher . . .

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David Pleacher is a retired mathematics teacher who has maintained a math page on the Internet since 1998 -- and one of his rich and varied...
Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Celebrate Math Women . . . Write about them!!

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     This message is a follow-up to a posting made on October 12 -- an announcement of the Student Essay Contest sponsored by the Associat...
Friday, November 27, 2020

November is Native American Heritage Month

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      Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is Native American Heritage Day -- a November event that was proclaimed in 2009 by President Obama...
Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Gather in Poems

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 Gather in Poems -- a sort of Thanksgiving      Last evening I attended a lovely virtual reading, "Gather in Poems," sponsored by ...
1 comment:
Monday, November 23, 2020

Happy Fibonacci Day!

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        Today, November 23 is Fibonacci Day . . . How are you celebrating?  Twitter poet Brian Bilston (@Brian_Bilston) has posted a Fibo...
Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Shaping POETRY with GEOMETRY

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Syllable-count constraints help me to think carefully about word choices as I construct a poem.  Here are square and triangular stanzas that...