Tartaglia solving the cubic -- in verse

     Mathematical historians now credit both Cardano and Tartaglia with the formula to solve cubic equations, referring to it as the "Cardano-Tartaglia Formula." Tartaglia is known for reporting solutions of three different forms of the cubic equation in a poem (1534).  Below we offer Boston poet Kellie Gutman's English translation of Tartaglia's verse, followed by the original Italian.

When X Cubed    by Niccolò Tartaglia (1500–1557)       (Englished by Kellie Gutman)

When x cubed’s summed with m times x and then   
  Set equal to some number, a relation    
  Is found where r less s will equal n.

Now multiply these terms. This combination
  rs will equal m thirds to the third;
  This gives us a quadratic situation,    

Not good at math . . .

     Connecticut poet Joan Cannon is a senior who laments her lingering anxiety over mathematics in her poem, "Humility," below.  I found Cannon's poem on Senior Women Web and it is accompanied there by selections from an article by Patrick Bahls entitled "Math and Metaphor:  Using Poetry to Teach Mathematics."  The complete article is available here.

     Humility    by Joan L. Cannon

     Archetypes, mysteries, simple clues
     that only fingers and toes, sticks and stones
     and flashes of inspiration require
     for universes to be disclosed ...
     symbols for functions and formulae
     for proof; logic so easy for some —
     why am I innumerate?  

Math Anxiety

     Recent comments from a friend describing anxiety that seems to freeze his attempts to understand and use a new mathematical concept have caused me to recall and dig out this old poem -- and, by recalling it, to increase my understanding of my friend. 

     The Math Teacher's Golf Lesson     by JoAnne Growney

     My practice swing was perfect --  slow start, easy
     acceleration through the ball to finish high.
     "Beautiful," he said.  "It's time to hit a few."
     I addressed a ball and settled down and swung --
     and missed.  "Concentrate," he said.  I squinted

Soon it will be February -- and Valentine's Day

     Looking back:  on February 12, 2011 I posted math-poetry suggestions for Valentine's Day at this link: Loving a mathematician (Valentine's Day and . . . ).   This posting from Feb 9 2013 offers verse along with an animated drawing of a heart-curve --a cardioid.    And this link goes to a mathematically poetic digital art exhibit (that includes a cardioid) by Guang Zhu.   
     For even more poetry related to the love-holiday, enter "Valentine" in the SEARCH box to the right.  Enjoy!

Poetry from a math teacher's son

     In an earlier post I have noted how effectively mathematicians and their mathematics may be described by poets who are in the same family.  This link, too, leads to portraits of mathematicians.
     Poet and novelist John Updike (1932-2009) was the son of a math teacher and the selection below is a sonnet that begins in the style of a math-class word-problem linking his own age with that of his father.

from  Midpoint     by John Updike

     FATHER, as old as you when I was four,
     I feel the restlessness of nearing death
     But lack your manic passion to endure,
     Your Stoic fortitude and Christian faith.
     Remember, at the blackboard, factoring? 

A sonnet for W.R.Hamilton

      Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) was also a poet (see, for example, this sonnet in a prior posting (13 October 2011).  Irish poet and physicist Iggy McGovern has written A Mystic Dream of 4:  A sonnet sequence based on the life of William Rowan Hamilton (Quaternia Press, 2013). 

The collection is prefaced by this quote from Hamilton:

"The quaternion [was] born, 

as a curious offspring of a quaternion of parents, 

say of geometry, algebra, metaphysics, and poetry."

Here is McGovern's opening sonnet.

GEOMETRY     by Iggy McGovern

Once, any pupil could define me best:
"points, lines, angles and figures", could amuse
The table with the Christmas cracker jest
About 'the squaw' on the hypotenuse! 

The world is round . . . or flat!

British poet Wendy Cope frequently includes edgy humor in her poems (she is, indeed, a prizewinner in light verse) -- and I like that.  In the poem below (found at PoetryFoundation.org and originally published in Poetry in 2006), Cope examines arguments of whether our world is flat or round.  Part 2 of the poem involves the interesting permutation pattern that is called a pantoum (Lines 2 and 4 of each four-line stanza are repeated (approximately) as lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza -- and the final stanza is wrapped into the first).

Differences of Opinion     by Wendy Cope

1     HE TELLS HER

He tells her that the earth is flat --
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong,
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win.  He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.   

Counting those who grieve . . .

Each day's email brings me a Poem-a-Day from Poets.org and today's selection by Matthew Olzmann considers the tragedies from gun-violence in our news too often these days. Numbers are "objective" -- and count those who watch and grieve as well as the guns and shooters -- or are they?  Here is an excerpt from Olzmann's poem, "Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz":

          . . .   Did I say
          I had “one” student who

          opened a door and died?
          That’s wrong.

          There were many.
          The classroom of grief  

Math is Brewing . . .

For one of my granddaughters who likes poems, I recently purchased If You're Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand:  Poems about School by Kalli Dakos (Aladdin Paperbacks, 1995).  It's hard to find school poems that are non-critical of math -- but this one, at least, has some rhyming fun while cooking it.

Math is Brewing and I'm in Trouble     by Kalli Dakos

       Numbers single,
       Numbers double,
       Math is brewing
       And I'm in trouble,

       If I could mix a magic brew,
       Numbers, I'd take care of you.

2015 (and prior) -- titles, dates, links for posts

If you wish to easily BROWSE past postings . . .

Scroll down to find titles and dates and links to postings in 2015.  

OR follow these year-number links to go to lists of posts through 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011 -- and all the way back to March 2010 when this blog was begun. At the top of the column to the right is a SEARCH box for the blog and this link leads to a PDF file of searchable topics and names of poets and mathematicians presented herein.  Scrolling down the right-hand column leads to a partial list of LABELS that are linked to a list of blogs that contain them.
   Dec 31  Precision leads to poetry . . .
   Dec 28  Can a woman learn science (or mathematics)?
   Dec 24  And now welcome Christmas . . .
   Dec 22  Let us not forget . . .
   Dec 20  Who put the pie in Pythagoras?
   Dec 18  A student writes poetry for a math class . . .
   Dec 15  Generalized Pythagorean Theorem--a visual poem? 

Precision leads to poetry . . .

As the year ends, a quote from one of my once-favorite authors, Don DeLillo (in correspondence with David Foster Wallace -- whose Infinite Jest is on my to-read list), earlier offered by Jordan Ellenberg in Quomodocumque.

Quoting DeLillo:

          Once, probably, I used to think that vagueness 
          was a loftier kind of poetry, truer 
          to the depths of consciousness, and maybe 
          when I started to read mathematics and science 

          back in the mid-70s I found an unexpected lyricism 
          in the necessarily precise language 
          that scientists tend to use. 
          My instinct, my superstition 
  
          is that the closer I see a thing 
          and the more accurately I describe it, 
          the better my chances of arriving 
          at a certain sensuality of expression.

And at the BrainyQuotes website is this quote (and many others) by DeLillo (and many others).

For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Can a woman learn science (or mathematics)?

It is not a new idea that women do not have scientific aptitude, that teaching them requires special accommodation.  Here, in a poem by one of the greatest scientists of all time, is a description of a condescending lecture to a female student, individually and behind a curtain, followed by her mocking reply.

Lectures to Women on Physical Science  by James Clerk Maxwell  (1831-79)

I.    PLACE. —A small alcove with dark curtains.
       The class consists of one member.
       SUBJECT.—Thomson’s Mirror Galvanometer.

      The lamp-light falls on blackened walls,
            And streams through narrow perforations,
      The long beam trails o’er pasteboard scales,
            With slow-decaying oscillations.
Flow, current, flow, set the quick light-spot flying,
Flow current, answer light-spot, flashing, quivering, dying.

And now welcome Christmas . . .

Let us sing . . .

(a version of)  The Twelve Days of Christmas

          The twelfth day of Christmas.
          My true love gave to me,
          Twelve lords a leaping,
          Eleven ladies dancing,
          Ten pipers piping,
          Nine drummers drumming,
          Eight maids a milking,
          Seven swans a swimming,
          Six geese a laying,
          Five golden rings,
          Four colly birds,
          Three French hens,
          Two turtle doves,
          And a partridge in a pear tree.

To learn some history of this song (and its variations), frequently sung as a cumulative marathon, see Wikipedia.

Let us not forget . . .

At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, many are without shelter -- and are cold.  Let us think of them  -- as Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972) does in "A Carol" below (a poem whose lines for the most part maintain an alternating 6-5 syllable count and which contains the small number two).  Let us remember to share our warmth.

       A Carol     by Cecil Day-Lewis 

       Oh hush thee, my baby,
       Thy cradle's in pawn:

Who put the pie in Pythagoras?

Irish poet and physicist Iggy McGovern has written both humorous and serious verse.  Today we have lines from him that startle and amuse -- below I present, with his permission, selections from his collection Safe House (Dedalus Press, 2010).  Here are "Belfast Inequalities" and "Proverbs for the Computer Age":

Belfast Inequalities     by Iggy McGovern
                          for Master Devlin
       Who put the pie in Pythagoras,
       who put the bra in algebra
       and who was the first to say: Let x
       be that unknown quantity in sex?
       the answer's in some chromosome
       and not the sums you do at home 

A student writes poetry for a math class . . .

A recent fun experience for me has been correspondence with Melanie Simms, a poet and math student at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg University, where I taught for a bunch of years.  Melanie recently completed the course "Mathematical Thinking" -- a course that I helped to develop during my years at BU and one for which I wrote a textbook (Mathematics in Daily Life:  Making Decisions and Solving Problems, McGraw-Hill, 1986).   The course was developed to offer general quantitative skills for students majoring in fields (such as English or Art)  that do not have a specific mathematics requirement.  Melanie's instructor for the course, Paul Loomis, is a singer and songwriter and, with him as first reader, Melanie composed a mathematical poem involving course material.  She has shared the poem with me and has given me permission to post it here.

     The Mathematics of Chance      by Melanie Simms

     The gods of chance
     Have left me skewed
     My distribution, variable!
     With ranges far, and ranges wide
     My navigation's terrible!