Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Dangerous Surprises of Exponential Growth

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      In 1968, while I was in graduate school at the University of Oklahoma, the journal Science published " The Tragedy of the Common...
Monday, August 29, 2022

Mathematics -- not isolated STARS but COMMUNITY

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     In his 1940 book-length essay, A Mathematician's Apology , eminent British mathematician G. H Hardy minimizes the importance of tho...
Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Remembering Life on the Farm

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      I grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania -- and I think that farm life (at least as my father practiced it) was a strong introducti...
Monday, August 22, 2022

Celebrate poet Rita Dove

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      In the KIDSPOST section of this morning's Washington Post I learned that next Sunday, August 28, is the birthday of poet Rita Do...
Wednesday, August 17, 2022

HER Math Story

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    “ Her Math Story ” is a platform of three women mathematicians ( Julia Kroos , Tamara Grossmann and Joana Grah ) who want to empower yo...
Monday, August 15, 2022

Do more to fight injustice!

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     In this 5 x 3 syllable-rectangle we have an important and poetic reminder from Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968); let us remember an...
Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics -- latest issue

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      Every six months a wonderful treasure appears in my email-box -- an announcement, with links, to the latest issue of the Journal of Hu...
Monday, August 8, 2022

BRIDGES Conference 2022 -- Math-Poetry

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      A couple of months ago ( here in my June 8 posting ) I offered a link to information about poetry to be offered at the 2022 Bridges Ma...
Thursday, July 28, 2022

Looking back to an old poem -- "Expectations"

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      Years ago I wrote this poem -- recently I have rediscovered it and, once again, pondered the role of time in my life.  Here, from the ...
Monday, July 25, 2022

Einstein Defining Special Relativity

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     Today I share a poem by poet A. Van Jordan that takes math-science terminology and mixes it into personal situations -- and offers var...
Friday, July 22, 2022

Worried about Climate Change

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     When working with students in poetry workshops I often ask them to write to satisfy a constraint -- perhaps a Fib or a square poem -- i...
Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Amelia Earhart -- a brave and pioneering woman!

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      Growing up on a farm in Western Pennsylvania, one of my heroes was Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) -- a brave and talented female who died...
Thursday, July 14, 2022

Poems with multiple choices of what to read . . .

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      When you pick up something to read -- a newspaper article, instructions for a new appliance, or a poem, or whatever  -- in what order ...
Monday, July 11, 2022

CoronaVirus Fibs

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     The threats of the coronavirus seem less now, but are not gone.  And, as I go through files, I have found these Fibs -- expressing conc...
Thursday, July 7, 2022

Poetry and the Fields Medal

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     It has been exciting to learn that a woman -- Maryna Viazovska of Ukraine -- has won a Fields Medal (often called "the Nobel pr...
Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Still Life with Mathematics

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   The title of this blog post, "Still Life with Mathematics" is also the title of a mixed media artwork by Pacific Lutheran Unive...
Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Learning from Poetry -- "The Courtesy of the Blind"

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      Can difficulty with understanding mathematics be compared with physical blindness -- a difficulty that is biological rather than chose...
Thursday, June 23, 2022

Remembering Alan Turing

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      A posting from Mathigon on Twitter reminded me that today is the birthday of pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing (1912-1954); a...
Monday, June 20, 2022

Mathy Poems on YouTube

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      In a recent posting -- 6/08/2022 -- I tell of mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz and link to her website that has a collection of links to...
Friday, June 17, 2022

Word-Play with Mathematics -- On-Stage

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      One of the rewards from time spent with mathematics or from time spent with poetry is the array of multiple meanings that we find . . ...
Tuesday, June 14, 2022

The Windmill Proof

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      From Alice Major, Canadian poet and first Poet Laureate of the city of Edmonton, Alberta, I learned of Welsh computer science profess...
Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Many, many mathy poems -- THANK YOU, Sarah Glaz

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      Sarah Glaz , mathematics professor emerita at the University of Connecticut, is also a poet.  AND, not only a poet but a coordinator o...
Friday, June 3, 2022

The Mobius Strip -- in a LIMERICK

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     Mathematics offers brief, condensed language for many big ideas.  Even for small problems -- such as the word problems of a beginning...
Monday, May 30, 2022

All truths wait in all things . . .

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       Tomorrow, May 31, is the 130th anniversary of the birth of American poet, Walt Whitman .  Below I include a few Whitman lines (with t...
Friday, May 27, 2022

Mathematics might be dangerous!

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       Censorship of Math Texts : A Syllable-Square with Questions             Florida educators have banned        Lots of mathematics text...
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Monday, May 23, 2022

Crisscrossing Infinity

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     Poet and painter and literary theorist Paul Hartal was born in Hungary, with higher-education experiences in Israel and the U.S. -- an...
Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Math-Poetry -- when distinct worlds collide . . .

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     Carol Dorf has been a long-time leader in math poetry projects.  A now-retired secondary school math teacher from California, Carol is...
Monday, May 16, 2022

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2022

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      Founded by Reza Sarhangi (1952-2016) in 1998, the BRIDGES organization has had annual conferences and is an ongoing supporter of lin...
Thursday, May 12, 2022

Poem of the Census Enumerator

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          When I look at           the person I           meet on the street,           what do I see? One of the powerful and relevant poem...
Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Inspirational/Poetic Quotes about Mathematics

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     The poetic quotes below sample what is found in an article by Natasha Irshad , " Inspirational quotes about the importance of Math...
Thursday, May 5, 2022

Build a Poem using a Fano Plane

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     Many of the mathematical poetic forms introduced in this blog are structures that can be used to build a poet's fragmented thoughts...
Tuesday, May 3, 2022

"A Mother's Math is Never Done"

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     In just a few days (on May 8) we will celebrate Mother's Day 2022 in the US.  And I am thinking back to the July 2018 issue the Jo...
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Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Poem-in-your-Pocket Day -- April 29, 2022

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       The following stanza by  award-winning children's author,  Beatrice Schenk de Regniers , (1914-2000), has led to an annual celebr...
Monday, April 25, 2022

28 Lines for History's FIRST recorded author

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     Earlier this month I attended (virtually) a mathematics conference and focused my attention on sessions that linked math and the arts. ...
Thursday, April 21, 2022

April 22 -- Observe Earth Day

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     Along with the vicious Russian attacks in Ukraine, our world today is observing a much longer period of destruction to our planet.  Thi...
Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Censorship of math books -- Oh, my!!

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                         A Syllable-Square for Math Texts                                                    If a math text shares          ...
Thursday, April 14, 2022

Poetry at the Mathematics Conference

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      Last weekend, April 6-9, was a virtual national jmm - Joint Mathematics Meetings -- and I attended a number of sessions that explore...
Monday, April 11, 2022

War and Resistance -- in Eleven Three-line Stanzas

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      Recently I searched work by Ukranian authors at the Poetry International website -- hoping to find poems with mentions of mathematics...
Monday, April 4, 2022

April Celebrates both Math and Poetry . . .

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     April is Math-Stat Awareness Month and here at the American Mathematical Society website are lots of ideas for learning and enjoyment...
Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Winning Essays about Math Women

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      The Association for Women in Mathematics each year sponsors an Essay Contest in which students (junior high, high school, and colleg...
Monday, March 28, 2022

A Poet with a Slide Rule

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     In 1966 Life Magazine celebrated Danish scholar Piet Hein (1905-1966) in an article ( found here , p. 55...) by Jim Hicks entitled ...
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Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Celebrate Amalie Emmy Noether

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 On this date -- March 23, 1883 -- mathematician Emmy Noether was born:         Emmy Noether's abstract axiomatic view        changed th...
Monday, March 21, 2022

Happy World Poetry Day, 2022

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 In the words of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), "Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."
Tuesday, March 15, 2022

IF/THEN #IfThenSheCan THE EXHIBIT

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     One of the exciting current events here in the Washington, DC area is the # IfThenSheCan Exhibit   -- a monumental exhibit of 120 3-D...
Thursday, March 10, 2022

Celebrate Pi -- and Poe

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     Recently I came across a link I had saved to an article from last June in the Washington Post -- an article that considers Edgar Allan...
Monday, March 7, 2022

International Day of the Woman -- 03-08-2022

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 Celebrate Math-Women with Poems Throughout the history of mathematics, women have often been excluded or ignored.  This is changing.  I off...
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Friday, March 4, 2022

Poetry of ideas -- an anagram, a palindrome

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      Minnestoa math teacher Ben Orlin 's website Math with Bad Drawings is a fun place to visit and Orlin often posts on Twitter -- br...