Monday, November 28, 2022

The Geometry of Gerrymandering

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gerrymandering : the practice of dividing or arranging  a territorial unit into election districts in a way  that gives one political party ...
Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Trying a Tritina

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      Writer and scholar Marian Christie (born in Zimbabwe and now in Kent, England) has had a long term interest in mathematics and poetry...
Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Student Essay Contest -- Write about a Math-Woman

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  Essay Contest -- Sponsored by AWM and Math for America      Each year the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and Math for America...
Monday, November 14, 2022

Who is the GOD of ARITHMETIC?

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     Recently I have learned (from poet and Capillano University professor Lisa Lajeunesse -- who enjoys linking mathematics and the arts) ...
Thursday, November 10, 2022

One Idea May Hide Another . . .

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     One of the excitements I find in both mathematics and poetry is the continuing discovery of new meaning.  A first reading discovers ...
Monday, November 7, 2022

How we learn Mathematics

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       Recently I came across an interesting article about how we learn mathematics by Shaneen Suhail (a Masters student at JK Institute of ...
Friday, November 4, 2022

Struggling to create -- slave and master . . .

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      In the sonnet below, Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) speaks of the enslavement of a writer of poetry in the effort to explain id...
Thursday, November 3, 2022

Struggling -- and then, after a while, Knowing

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      Most of my experiences with solving mathematical problems have been challenging at first -- but often, after I explore and collect my ...
Monday, October 31, 2022

Halloween Counting Rhymes

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 Here are links to a pair of fun counting rhymes: " Five Little Pumpkins " " Three Little Witches "
Friday, October 28, 2022

In Praise of the Irrational

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     Japanese-American poet and retired math teacher Amy Uyematsu recently has published a new poetry collection, That Blue Trickster Time ...
Monday, October 24, 2022

Remote Schooling has hurt Math Learning

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 Is it true that in any sequence of thirty words in The Washington Post at least two of the words will start with the same letter?       Tod...
Thursday, October 20, 2022

Communicating Mathematics with Poetry

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     Each year MoMath ( The National Museum of Mathematics ) sponsors The Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Math Communication -- a contest for ...
Monday, October 17, 2022

MacArthur Awards -- a Math-Woman, a Math-Poet

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 SHE DOES MATH -- WE LIKE THAT!  Recently the 2022 MacArthur Fellowship awards have been announced and the recipients include Melanie Match...
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Poetry and Mathematics -- Learning by Heart

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     Many mathematical ideas are learned "by heart" -- that is, stored in  memory -- definitions, calculation, etc -- even for tho...
Monday, October 10, 2022

A Sonnet by William Rowan Hamilton

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     Despite their similar lifespans, it is said that British mathematicians William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) and George Boole (1815-186...
Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Math Jokes and Other Mathy Applications

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     Each week I get an email from Feedspot that tells me of mathy blog postings that I may have missed and may be interested in.  One of t...
Monday, October 3, 2022

Women in Mathematics -- Netherlands

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      Below I offer a poetic quote from Marta Pieropan -- a faculty member at Utrecht University and a member of a European Women in Mathem...
Thursday, September 29, 2022

Is a poem like a theorem?

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     Recently I have been musing over the question, "Is a poem like a theorem?"  Enriching my thinking has been a poem by Canadian...
Monday, September 26, 2022

Some students regret their major

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      An article by Andrew Van Dam in the Washington POST earlier this month ( available at this link ) asserts that nearly 2 in 5 America...
Thursday, September 22, 2022

Math-Poetry Recordings on YouTube

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     The arrival in 2020 of COVID caused a huge number of gatherings to take place online -- including mathematics conferences and poetry re...
Monday, September 19, 2022

Arts-based Math Education -- Meet one of the Stars

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     Through BRIDGES Math-Arts Conferences I have become acquainted with the versatile Canadian scholar, Susan Gerofsky -- and I introduce y...
Friday, September 16, 2022

Math Poetry Contest for Massachusetts Students

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      Middle school, high school and college students in Massachusetts are invited to submit MATH POETRY in a contest sponsored by the Ame...
Monday, September 12, 2022

The Poetry of Mathematician George Boole

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      One of the interesting poetry collections on my shelves is The Poetry of George Boole by Desmond MacHale (Logic Press, Ireland, 2020...
Friday, September 9, 2022

Enriching Poetry with Mathematical Ideas

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     An important leader in the community of writers who link mathematics and poetry is Sarah Glaz -- a scholar who is not only a mathemat...
Tuesday, September 6, 2022

From a poetic artist -- "New Math"

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     Neha Misra , one of my neighbors (in Eastern Village cohousing in Silver Spring, Maryland) is both a poet and a visual artist; in a re...
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...