Monday, January 30, 2023

Remembering Charles Simic

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       Recently Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former US poet laureate (2007-2008) Charles Simic has died.  Although Simic's poems wer...
Wednesday, January 25, 2023

A mathy poem from artificial intelligence

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     A recent Facebook posting by Maryland poet and computer programmer Henry Crawford  included a poem written by a robot -- and he shared ...
Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Poetry in Politics

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      Numerical or alphabetical constraints often are used by writers to add shape and impact to their writing -- and such was the case in a...
Monday, January 16, 2023

A Lecture on the Cube

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     Summer weeks spent teaching English to Romanian students have helped me to learn of several of the country's fine poets and to get ...
Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Mathematics Sets Sail . . .

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     Each time I open a new issue of Scientific American I am delighted to turn to " Meter" , a poetry feature  begun in 2020 and...
Monday, January 9, 2023

Applied Mathematics -- in Spoken Word Poetry

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     Lots of mathy poems are available on YouTube -- for example, recordings by poetry participants in Bridges Math-Arts conferences are ava...
Friday, January 6, 2023

AMS 2023 Math-Poetry Contest Winners

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     This week, January 4-7, in Boston MA, more than a dozen national mathematics organizations  are holding national meetings -- at a confe...
Monday, January 2, 2023

Celebrate the life of John Sims

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      These days I am celebrating the life -- and mourning the passage -- of mathy-artist-writer and fighter for human rights, John Sims, w...
Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Ending the Year with Gratitude -- for Teachers!

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     During his time as Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins created Poetry 180 -- a project designed to encourage students t...
Wednesday, December 21, 2022

A Cone with a Sphere on top

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      The phrase used as title for this post, "A cone with a sphere on top" -- from a slightly-mathy poem by Katharine O'Brien...
Monday, December 19, 2022

Counting On . . .

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     I was the oldest, the "responsible" one -- when I wanted to sleep in, my mother said, "Your father -- and our farm -- ar...
Thursday, December 15, 2022

Patterns of the Wind

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     Sometimes a poem contains just a sample of mathematics -- but a very memorable one.   Such is the case with "I Like the Wind"...
Monday, December 12, 2022

Short Poems

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          Poetry, like mathematics, uses condensed language -- often saying quite a lot in just a few symbols.           POEM       by Aram ...
Thursday, December 8, 2022

Writing -- a Path toward Knowing

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     Advice for my grandchildren -- in the form of a Fib.  (Wish I had remembered to give it on November 23 -- which is Fibonacci day. )    ...
Monday, December 5, 2022

All Together -- Humor, Math, Poetry

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     Blogger and teacher Sue VanHattum   ( blogger at Math Mama Writes ) has been a frequent and valuable contributor to this blog -- find s...
Friday, December 2, 2022

Poetry of Mathematics--David Eugene Smith, 1926

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      Recently poetry-fan and occasional versifier  Greg Coxson,   a Research Engineer in the Department  Electrical and Computer Engineeri...
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...