An immeasurable continuum

This poem by Emily Warn (a founder of PoetryFoundation.org) uses mathematical terminology to introduce us to the immeasurable horror of death by slow torture.  May our nation never again engage in such atrocities!

The Vanishing Point     by Emily Warn

You slow down to watch cumulus clouds stream across the
sky. You choose a more circuitous route home and pass a
tree with white bags tied around random apples. The apples
remind you of clouds, how each hangs in the sky, singular
yet part of a flock. Each item in the flock is a coordinate of
earth and sky, enumerating space. The flocks of apples and
clouds are actual infinities, an endless collection of discrete
items that one can conceivably count to the end. This is

A well-constructed language

     California math teacher, poet and editor, Carol Dorf is a vital force in the production and dissemination of mathy poems.  A blog SEARCH using her name will find links to all of my mentions of her activity.  Here is one such link --  to my list of titles of mathy poems in Talking-Writing, an online journal for which Dorf is poetry editor.    Dorf's poem below speaks of Ada Lovelace, a math-woman who has been featured herein on July 16, 2015  and September 18, 2015.

Mathematics is "a well-constructed language."

 Dorf's "Ada" first appeared in Volume 14 of The Mom Egg Review.

Poetry and Protest

      One of the fine new anthologies of 2016 is Of Poetry and Protest:  From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, published by W W Norton -- put together by Phil Cushway (Compiler), Michael Warr (Editor), and Victoria Smith (Photographer).  Here, from that collection, are the opening stanzas of Marilyn Nelson's "Cells and Windows" -- a poem that gains much of its power from the awful truth conveyed by its numbers.
 
Cells and Windows          by Marilyn Nelson
             after work by neogeo painter Peter Halley   

Black men in their prime
working years, especially
those without a high school
diploma, are much more likely
to be in jail than white men are.
(a) true   (b) true    

So much depends on . . . normality

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     I found an lovely little autumn poem (after William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow") by Michael Khmelnitsky -- who declined to let me use it herein, and so I offer a link to it -- enjoy "The Gaussian Function."  

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Happy Birthday, Marie Curie

Today, November 7, is the birthday of Marie Curie (1867-1934, Nobel prize in physics, 1903).  Curie is celebrated in this poem by Richard Aston, first posted in this blog on December 6, 2014 along with two other math-science-themed poems.

Scientist     by Richard Aston

It took more than a figure, face, skin, and hair
for me to become Marie Curie,
wife of simple, smiling, selective, Pierre
who could recognize — because he was one — my genius.

Calculating costs of pollution ... and other news

     Recently I was browsing through an oldish collection, The Best American Poetry 1999 (edited by Robert Bly) where I found and liked this poem by Marcia Southwick -- a poem that drew me in with its anti-pollution attitudes and its enumeration of some of the costs of pollution.
 
A Star Is Born in the Eagle Nebula     by Marcia Southwick
                           To Larry Levis, 1946–1996
They’ve finally admitted that trying to save oil-soaked
seabirds doesn’t work. You can wash them, rinse them
with a high-pressure nozzle, feed them activated charcoal
to absorb toxic chemicals, & test them for anemia, but the oil
still disrupts the microscopic alignment of feathers that creates
a kind of wet suit around the body. (Besides, it costs $6oo to wash
the oil slick off a penguin & $32,000 to clean an Alaskan seabird.)

Geometry -- in art and poetry

     St. Louis poet Constance Levy is an acclaimed author of children's poetry -- I found her poem "Madinat as Salam" (included below) in the collection, Heart to Heart, (Edited by Jan Greenberg; Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2001),  a beautifully presented and illustrated anthology of poems inspired by American art.  Enjoy!

Frank Stella.  Madinat as Salam III  1971.  Acrylic on canvas

Make Something of Nothing ... with Bob Dylan

     The puzzle of nothing actually being something is central to our use of numbers -- and I use it today as an excuse to link to a Bob Dylan song and celebrate his recent Nobel prize.  Below I offer one (the 3rd, of six) of the stanzas of "Too Much of Nothing" -- followed by a link to the complete lyrics.  (And for those readers seeking other poems of nothing, here is a link to blog poetry from 2011 about division by zero, this link leads to making something of nothing . . .  and this link leads to several nothing links -- it was found via a blog search using the search term "zero.")

from     Too Much of Nothing     by Bob Dylan

          Too much of nothing
          Can make a man abuse a king
          He can walk the streets and boast like most
          But he wouldn’t know a thing
          Now, it’s all been done before
          It’s all been written in the book
          But when there’s too much of nothing
          Nobody should look

Here is a link to the complete lyrics of "Too Much of Nothing."  Enjoy.
                                          

Have a Happy "Hamilton Day"

 April 15-23, 2016 is Maths Week in Ireland.

 

     AND, as this recent Slate article by Katharine Merow announces, in Ireland October 16 is "Hamilton Day" -- named for Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865).  Math-science writer Merow entertainingly describes Hamilton's mathematical contributions and suggests that the holiday be celebrated by more of us than just Ireland. 
     This blog adds some poetry to the celebratory fare -- here is a link (from a 2011 posting) to a poem by Hamilton, himself and this January, 2016 link leads to a sonnet about Hamilton by poet Iggy McGovern.

From order to chaos -- "Fig Tree Rag"

     Robert Dawson, a mathematician and poet from Halifax, Nova Scotia, is wide-ranging in the mathematics that he includes in poetry.  Here is a link to my posting of his "Statistical Lament."  Still others may be found with a SEARCH using the poet's name.
     Dawson's poem below is motivated by chaos and period doublings -- and their patterns -- a complicated system that, under certain conditions approaches a number called Feigenbaum's constant.  (Mitchell Feigenbaum is a mathematical physicist who did pioneering work in chaos theory.   "Feigenbaum" is a German surname meaning "Fig Tree" -- hence the title of the poem.)  Probably you will want to read the poem aloud to get a feel for the rhythmic patterns -- and chaos -- that Dawson has designed for us. 

Fig Tree Rag    (after Scott Joplin)   by Robert Dawson

The music drifts across the room:
from clarinet and saxophone
a sliding stream of melody,
piano chords beneath it, and
upon the cymbal and the snare
the drummer paints a lazy beat
with wire brushes, regular
and cool and uninflected as
a music teacher’s metronome.

She argued for Newton's physics

     Here, by Voltaire, is a poem about mathematician/scientist Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) -- who explained Newton's physics but was not remembered for her own work as she should have been.  

At this link, one may begin to learn about du Châtelet's many contributions.

       The Divine Émilie      by Voltaire (1694-1778)

       Here's a portrait of my Émilie:
       She's both a beauty and a friend to me.
       Her keen imagination is always in bloom.
       Her noble mind brightens every room.
       She's possessed of charm and wit,
       Though sometimes shows too much of it.
       She has, I assure you, a genius rare.
       With Horace and Newton, she can compare.
       Yet, she will sit for hours and hours
       With people who bore her
       And card-playing gamblers.