Recently I have obtained a copy of Sam Illingworth's book, A Sonnet to Science: scientists and their poetry (Manchester University Press, 2019) -- a collection of essays-with-poems that features these six scientist-poets: Humphrey Davy, Ada Lovelace, James Clerk Maxwell, Ronald Ross, Miroslav Holub, and Rebecca Elson.
A dust-jacket blurb describes the author:
Sam Illingworth is a Senior Lecturer in Science Communication, where his work involves
using poetry to develop dialogues between scientists and non-scientists,
especially amongst traditionally under-served and under-represented communities.
Illingworth also is a poet -- with a poem-a-week-blog available at this link.
From Rebecca Elson (1960-1999), an astronomer and poet whose life was cut short by cancer, we have these math-linked lines (written in 1998 and on page 168 of A Sonnet to Science):
Is there any language, logic
Any algebra where death is not
The tragedy it seems
Monday, October 14, 2019
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Math modeling is poetry . . .
Jennifer Pazour is a professor the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytecnic Institute and is, like me, a blogger. Recently I discovered in her blog this 2014 posting that modifies a description of poetry by poet Geoffrey Orr to compare poetry with mathematical modeling. First, a brief poem that for me illustrates the mathematical nature of the poetry of Orr -- followed by Pazour's poetry-math-modeling comparison.
Manhattan Island Poem by Gregory Orr
Thin river woman with a concrete star
wedged in her ear. I wrap
a blue scarf of old movies around my eyes.
At night I am a jar of fireflies dying. found at PoemHunter.com
Manhattan Island Poem by Gregory Orr
Thin river woman with a concrete star
wedged in her ear. I wrap
a blue scarf of old movies around my eyes.
At night I am a jar of fireflies dying. found at PoemHunter.com
Monday, October 7, 2019
The Cube of the Rainbow
Later this week a scheduled screening (in nearby Takoma Park, MD) of a film about Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) has prompted me to return to some rereading of Dickinson's verse -- which is occasionally mathematical. For example:
We shall find the Cube of the Rainbow by Emily Dickinson
We shall find the Cube of the Rainbow.
Of that there is no doubt.
But the Arc of a Lover's conjecture
Eludes the finding out.
The stanza above is found in many places; my source is Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics, ed. by S Glaz and JA Growney (AK Peters/CRC Press, 2008). This link leads to previous postings of Dickinson's work in this blog.
We shall find the Cube of the Rainbow by Emily Dickinson
We shall find the Cube of the Rainbow.
Of that there is no doubt.
But the Arc of a Lover's conjecture
Eludes the finding out.
The stanza above is found in many places; my source is Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics, ed. by S Glaz and JA Growney (AK Peters/CRC Press, 2008). This link leads to previous postings of Dickinson's work in this blog.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
"My number is . . ."
More than twenty years ago I found and admired Montana poet Sandra Alcosser's poem, "My Number" (included in Except by Nature, Graywolf, 1998) -- and I included it in a small anthology, Numbers and Faces, that I edited; (published in 2001 by the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics). "My Number" also has more recently also been included in Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (Edited by Glaz and Growney: AK Peters/CRC Press, 2008).
My Number by Sandra Alcosser
I wear her like a shadow. We judge each other,
My number and I. She is the title. The license.
The cash drawer. My random number.
She protects me from myself. She desires me.
She says she’s only one of thirty million species.
She wishes she were more than anecdotal evidence.
My Number by Sandra Alcosser
I’m linked with the fate of the world’s disasters
and only have a little freedom to live or die.
VITESLAV NEZVAL
My number is small. An hundred pounds of water,
A quart of salt. Her digit is a garment.I wear her like a shadow. We judge each other,
My number and I. She is the title. The license.
The cash drawer. My random number.
She protects me from myself. She desires me.
She says she’s only one of thirty million species.
She wishes she were more than anecdotal evidence.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Personalities in Mathematics . . .
For those of us who spend time in the World of Mathematics, numbers and other mathematical objects often develop personalities. Previous posts have featured poems by the French poet, Guillevic, whose verses animate geometric objects. Today I offer (below) a photo of "Glum Circles" -- found in the imaginative collection, Lyrical Diagrams -- with prose poems by David Greenslade and images by Carolina Vasquez (Shearsman Books, 2012).
An online sample of the first 17 pages of Lyrical Diagrams is available here as a pdf.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Articles that link math and poetry . . .
Below I offer links to two articles that I rediscovered recently.
The first is a National Geographic Education Blog posting from 2018, "How Math and Poetry Intersect" (an article for which I found no author named). This article offers a variety of activities for students.The second article comes from The American Scholar, way back in 2009 -- a thoughtful article by Joel E, Cohen entitled "A Mindful Beauty: what poetry and applied mathematics have in common" -- an article also mentioned in this 2010 blog posting.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Sing a Song of Mathematics . . .
One of the long-term supporters of links between mathematics and the arts is Douglas Norton -- a mathematics professor at Villanova University and very active in the Special Interest Group of the MAA (SIGMAA) that celebrates Mathematics and the Arts.
Doug Norton also is a song-writer and often has participated in music activities at the Bridges Math-Art Conferences. Here is a sample of his math-art lyrics:
Take A Chance On Me by Doug Norton
If you change your mind and want two combined,
Don’t do Math alone:
Join the Math Art zone.
If you do Art, let me know, spread some Math around.
If you’ve got no place to go with an upper bound,
Math or Art alone feeling monotone?
Do as we condone:
Join the Math Art zone.
Doug Norton also is a song-writer and often has participated in music activities at the Bridges Math-Art Conferences. Here is a sample of his math-art lyrics:
Take A Chance On Me by Doug Norton
If you change your mind and want two combined,
Don’t do Math alone:
Join the Math Art zone.
If you do Art, let me know, spread some Math around.
If you’ve got no place to go with an upper bound,
Math or Art alone feeling monotone?
Do as we condone:
Join the Math Art zone.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Beautiful algebra -- a Haiku
One of my recent discoveries has been the POEM GENERATOR website at https://www.poem-generator.org.uk/. In particular, I have used it to help me to generate Haiku to celebrate special birthdays. Typically, the generator offers me a Haiku that does not quite satisfy me -- and I tweak it a bit. STILL, the website deserves most of the credit -- for it has given me a basis to mold. This morning, I have used the site to help me generate a math-Haiku:
Beautiful - A Haiku by https://www.poem-generator.org.uk/haiku and JoAnne
Abstract algebra --
creations beautiful, so
useful, breathtaking.
Beautiful - A Haiku by https://www.poem-generator.org.uk/haiku and JoAnne
Abstract algebra --
creations beautiful, so
useful, breathtaking.
Friday, September 13, 2019
"Creation Myth on a Moebius Band"
Found at this site, several MINIMS -- brief,thought-provoking poems by Howard Nemerov (1920-1991). This one deftly uses the mathematical Moebius Band:
Creation Myth on a Moebius Band by Howard Nemerov
This world’s just mad enough to have been made
By the Being His beings into Being prayed.
This poet frequently used mathematics in his poems. Here is a link to previous Nemerov postings in this blog.
Creation Myth on a Moebius Band by Howard Nemerov
This world’s just mad enough to have been made
By the Being His beings into Being prayed.
This poet frequently used mathematics in his poems. Here is a link to previous Nemerov postings in this blog.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Colorado Math-Poetry Contest -- deadline 11-12-19
CONSIDER THIS !
The American Mathematical Society is sponsoring a math-poetry contest
for middle school, high school, and undergraduate students in Colorado
(deadline Nov. 12, 2019) with winning poems to be read January 18, 2020
at the Joint Mathematics Meetings at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
Information about contest entry is available here.
Last year a similar contest was held in Maryland, with winning student-poems (see poster) read Jan. 19, 2019 in Baltimore. And now, for students in Colorado:
Pick
up
your pen.
Think of ways
that math is magic.
Shape your words into a poem!
The stanza above is a Fib -- with syllables per line counted by the first six Fibonacci numbers.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Is TWO more than ONE?
A poetry friend reminded me recently via email of the poetry of Shel Silverstein (1930-1999) -- both humorous and provocative. The emailed poem was "Zebra Question" and it employs the strategy so often considered in mathematics -- in testing the truth of a statement, consider also the opposite. Silverstein's "Zebra Question" opens with these lines:
I asked the Zebra,
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
I asked the Zebra,
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Poems of Mathematics -- recalling some old posts
Today I have been browsing some old posts, and offer below a few links to remind us of mathy poems posted in this blog more than five years ago
“Compromise” by Charles S Allen
“Give Me an Epsilon and I Will Treat It Well” by Ray Bobo
“The Icosasphere” by Marianne Moore
“Mandelbrot Set” by Jonathan Coulton
“Numbers” by JoAnne Growney (a syllable-snowball)
“Numerical Landscape” by Eveline Pye
“Talking Big” by John Bricuth
“Zito the Magician” by Miroslav Holub
"Gaps" by Philip Holmes
AND, please go on to SEARCH this blog for lots more poems by Eveline Pye and Miroslav Holub -- and for other names that you find listed in the right-hand column (under Labels . . .).
“Compromise” by Charles S Allen
“Give Me an Epsilon and I Will Treat It Well” by Ray Bobo
“The Icosasphere” by Marianne Moore
“Mandelbrot Set” by Jonathan Coulton
“Numbers” by JoAnne Growney (a syllable-snowball)
“Numerical Landscape” by Eveline Pye
“Talking Big” by John Bricuth
“Zito the Magician” by Miroslav Holub
"Gaps" by Philip Holmes
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Is this Fib true?
Is
it
true that
among folks
not anchored to math
by study or career choice, more
people show delight in being poor at math than good ?
it
true that
among folks
not anchored to math
by study or career choice, more
people show delight in being poor at math than good ?
The lines above have syllable counts that follow the first seven Fibonacci numbers: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Enrich Mathematics Classes with Poems
In my mathematics classrooms, I have found it a challenge to include the history and spirit of mathematics -- and its people -- along with the math topics to be covered. Because I love poetry -- and also write some -- I gradually became aware of poems that could enrich my classes and I began to incorporate poetry in outside readings and essay topics and class discussions.
Here are links to poems that introduce the lives of four math-women:
Math Anxiety can be a hard topic for student or teacher to bring up -- but airing of views and healing might come from discussion. Poems to consider include:
Here are links to poems that introduce the lives of four math-women:
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
Amalie "Emmy" Noether (1882-1935)
Grace Murray Hopper (1906 - 1988)
And here is a poem about four influential teachers of mine; three of them math-people; three of them women.
Math Anxiety can be a hard topic for student or teacher to bring up -- but airing of views and healing might come from discussion. Poems to consider include:
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
The personal becomes mathematical -- in poetry
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) used counting in her description of love in her sonnet that begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Contemporary artist, poet, and retired math professor Sandra DeLosier Coleman finds relationships a bit more complicated -- and builds her description in the poem below on the square root of two.
Between You and the Root of Two by Sandra DeLozier Coleman
I have less chance of knowing you
than of writing out the root of two.
How e're I start, it never ends,
exploring how love lies, pretends.
Between You and the Root of Two by Sandra DeLozier Coleman
I have less chance of knowing you
than of writing out the root of two.
How e're I start, it never ends,
exploring how love lies, pretends.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Counting the Women . . .
Sometimes a professional group or a meeting-agenda or a table of contents contains so few women's names that they are easily counted. In this syllable-square stanza, I praise the absence of that condition:
This stanza and others with similar attitude appear in "Give Her Your Support" -- a poetry-page published recently in Math Horizons. For the entire collection, follow this link.
This stanza and others with similar attitude appear in "Give Her Your Support" -- a poetry-page published recently in Math Horizons. For the entire collection, follow this link.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Journal of Humanistic Mathematics--a TREASURE
Online and available FREE, the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics is a wonderful source of poems and stories and articles that connect mathematics to life. Thanks to editors Mark Huber and Gizem Karaali who lead the effort to bring us new issues each January and July. Here is a link to the Table of Contents for the July 2019 issue. Included in this issue is a thoughtful article by Sarah Mayes-Tang entitled "Telling Women's Stories: A Resource for College Mathematics Instructors" -- and, related to this, here is a link to postings in this blog found using a SEARCH for "mathematics and women and poem." (Scroll down the list of postings to find individual poems.)
This current issue of JHM also offers a selection of five poems and also a folder with insightful reflections in both prose and poetry -- "A Life of Equations Shifting to a Life of Words" by Thomas Willemain.
This current issue of JHM also offers a selection of five poems and also a folder with insightful reflections in both prose and poetry -- "A Life of Equations Shifting to a Life of Words" by Thomas Willemain.
Follow the links. And enjoy!
Monday, August 12, 2019
Celebrating Paul Erdos
One of the most interesting and productive mathematicians of all time was Paul Erdos (1913-1996). He was author of more than 1416 papers, and his name became associated with a labeling process for mathematicians, an idea called the Erdos Number. A mathematician who co-authored a paper with Erdos could claim Erdos Number 1. A mathematician who co-authored with a co-author of Erdos had Erdos Number 2. And so on.
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya (one of the poets at the 2019 Bridges MathArts Conference) has written a wonderful poem to celebrate Erdos; I offer below the central stanza of Bonch-Osmolovskaya's poem; the complete poem is available here.
from: Paul Erdos by Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
he inhaled and exhaled mathematics
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya (one of the poets at the 2019 Bridges MathArts Conference) has written a wonderful poem to celebrate Erdos; I offer below the central stanza of Bonch-Osmolovskaya's poem; the complete poem is available here.
from: Paul Erdos by Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
he inhaled and exhaled mathematics
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Poetry and Science
Originally from Scotland, Alice Major is a celebrated Canadian poet whose work often focuses on key ideas in mathematics and science. (Visit her website for lots of links.) The following lines of Major's verse appear in the Canadian magazine Prairie Fire (offering Major's presentation in the Anne Szumigalski lecture series entitled "Scansion and Science"); they are taken from Major's latest collection, Welcome to the Anthropocene." Enjoy this sample, then follow the links and read much more:
. . . poetry by Alice Major . . . |
Also from Welcome to the Anthropocene, Major's poem "Zero divided by zero" is available at this link here in my blog "Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics" -- and a blog-search leads to lots more of her work.
Monday, August 5, 2019
A visual poem -- Decision tree
From Norwegian math-poet Mike Naylor, this fascinating visual poem.
(Thanks, Mike -- from JoAnne Growney -- for permission to post.)
(Thanks, Mike -- from JoAnne Growney -- for permission to post.)
More information about the poets and poems for the 2019 BRIDGES Poetry reading is available here.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Recursion . . . in a life . . . in a poem . . .
The New Yorker offers a rich variety of poetry and in their print issue of 22 July 2019 they give a poem that I love: "Sentence" -- by Tadeusz Dabroswski (translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) plays with two meanings of the word "sentence" and also embodies the concept of recursion -- so important in mathematics. Below I offer the opening lines; at this link may be found the entire poem (both a print version and an audio recording).
Sentence by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
It’s as if you’d woken in a locked cell and found
in your pocket a slip of paper, and on it a single sentence
in a language you don’t know.
Sentence by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
It’s as if you’d woken in a locked cell and found
in your pocket a slip of paper, and on it a single sentence
in a language you don’t know.
Monday, July 29, 2019
What is beauty? Is mathematics beautiful?
My thoughts have been turned to the beauty of mathematics by stumbling onto a very fine article, "Beauty Bare: The Sonnet Form, Geometry and Aesthetics," by Matthew Chiasson and Janine Rogers -- published in 2009 in the Journal of Literature and Science and available online here.
The article opens with this quote from A Mathematician's Apology (see p. 14) by G. H. Hardy: Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place
in the world for ugly mathematics.
The article opens with this quote from A Mathematician's Apology (see p. 14) by G. H. Hardy: Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place
in the world for ugly mathematics.
Today I'm puzzling over what "beauty" means . . .
Thursday, July 25, 2019
As in mathematics--a lot in a few words--in Haiku
Recently on a visit to the website Singapore Math I found dozens of "mathematical" Haiku -- and I offer several below. Still more Haiku may be found at "The Republic of Mathematics" (a blog curated by Gary E. Davis), including a link to Haiku by Daniel Mathews.
Haiku are three-line poems that often -- but not always -- conform to a 5-7-5 syllable count. With their brevity they often resemble mathematics in that they have condensed a large amount of meainng into a few words.
Haiku are three-line poems that often -- but not always -- conform to a 5-7-5 syllable count. With their brevity they often resemble mathematics in that they have condensed a large amount of meainng into a few words.
Labels:
Daniel Matthews,
Gary E. Davis,
haiku,
Singapore Math
Monday, July 22, 2019
Mathematicians are not just white dudes . . .
Recently I found the wonderfully informative website arbitrarily close: musings on math and teaching -- my first visit to the site was to this 2016 posting about "The Mathematician's Project" -- a project and posting that offers lots of resources and links to introduce us to female mathematicians, black mathematicians, and more . . .
The following lines are from a puzzle-poem by mathematician-poet Benjamin Banneker -- a non-white dude; the sample has been obtained from a website that celebrates Banneker -- a website compiled by Washington, DC high school teacher John Mahoney. These lines come from Puzzle 5:
The following lines are from a puzzle-poem by mathematician-poet Benjamin Banneker -- a non-white dude; the sample has been obtained from a website that celebrates Banneker -- a website compiled by Washington, DC high school teacher John Mahoney. These lines come from Puzzle 5:
A snip from a puzzle by Benjamin Banneker |
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Math-Poetry -- Linz, Austria -- 07/19/2019
On Friday, July 19, 2-4 PM at the 2019 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Linz, Austria will be a Reading of Mathematical Poetry that features these poets:
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
Susan Gerofsky
Emily Grosholz
Lisa Lajeunesse
Marco Lucchesi
Iggy McGovern
Mike Naylor and
Eveline Pye
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
Susan Gerofsky
Emily Grosholz
Lisa Lajeunesse
Marco Lucchesi
Iggy McGovern
Mike Naylor and
Eveline Pye
reading mathy selections from their work.
And here is a sample of the stanzas you will enjoy at the reading -- from "First Test" by Marco Lucchesi, translated from the Portuguese by Renato Rezende:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
An Ode to Mathematics
One of the math-poets that I have met through this blog is Foteck Ivota, a mathematics teacher in the Cameroon. In an email message, Ivota has offered this point of view:
I love poetry too so much and I believe poetry can be used as a means of making students love and develop interest in mathematics. As teachers of this beautiful subject we face a lot of challenges to make students perceive maths as easy and down to earth.
Ivota also has shared several poems with me; here is one of them:
An Ode to Mathematics by Foteck Ivota
Your merits, maths, many may miss
And in ignorance may dismiss
Marvelous Maths that is life,
Believing that all is strife.
Chorus:
Maths for you and Maths for me,
Maths, Maths and Maths for all,
Maths, Maths for everything.
I love poetry too so much and I believe poetry can be used as a means of making students love and develop interest in mathematics. As teachers of this beautiful subject we face a lot of challenges to make students perceive maths as easy and down to earth.
Ivota also has shared several poems with me; here is one of them:
An Ode to Mathematics by Foteck Ivota
Your merits, maths, many may miss
And in ignorance may dismiss
Marvelous Maths that is life,
Believing that all is strife.
Chorus:
Maths for you and Maths for me,
Maths, Maths and Maths for all,
Maths, Maths for everything.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Mother-daughter geometry -- in poetry . . .
Last week (July 9) was the birthday of my mother -- and, although her body lies in a grave, her spirit continues to dance (and to both inform and confuse me). Recently published in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (January 2019 issue) this poem by Jenny Patton -- a creative writing teacher at Ohio State University and a wellness coach -- has been provoking my memories.
Geometry of Night by Jenny Patton
In three-dimensional Euclidean space,
lines in a plane that do not meet are parallel.
My beautiful aunt loved to sleep, blogs
my insomniac cousin about my mother
who went to her parallel life every night.
Those studying Playfair’s axiom note the
constant distance between parallel lines.
Geometry of Night by Jenny Patton
In three-dimensional Euclidean space,
lines in a plane that do not meet are parallel.
My beautiful aunt loved to sleep, blogs
my insomniac cousin about my mother
who went to her parallel life every night.
Those studying Playfair’s axiom note the
constant distance between parallel lines.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Euler's Vision -- in Verse
Scheduled to be read at the Mathematical Association of Victoria's annual conference in December of this year is a poetical choral piece for eight voices entitled "Euler's Vision" -- composed by Tom Petsinis -- a Melbourne writer (poet, playwright, and novelist) and mathematician. Here are the opening lines:
From "Euler's Vision" by Tom Petsinis |
Monday, July 8, 2019
Visual Poetry -- Newton's Third Law
One of the long-term and talented producers and advocates of mathematical visual poetry is Kaz Maslanka; his long-term mathematical-poetry blog is found here. Maslanka is a featured participant in The Film and Video Poetry Society's 2019 program. On Saturday, August 3, in Pasadena, CA, Maslanka will offer a presentation entitled "Mathematics and Digital Art." In addition, work by Maslanka on display (July 11 - August 3) at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. Kaz has sent me this photo of one of his featured (backlit) images:
Newton's Third Law in Karmic Warfare
by Kazmier Maslanka
![]() |
Digital painting displayed as a Duratrans |
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Fighting the heat -- with limericks!
Brief poems with strict patterns -- like the FIB and the LIMERICK -- are often used to convey mathy messages. Recently this limerick caught my eye (found at madkane.com).
Heated Limerick by Madeleine Begun Kane
One-hundred degrees? I may swoon.
Yes, I’m singing a very hot tune.
And I’m down in the mouth
Cuz this isn’t the south,
But Bayside, New York — early June.
At her long-standing and encyclopedic website, madkane.com, Kane offers lots more limericks -- and instructions for writing a limerick -- and also math-humor.
A wonderful source of math-humor and limericks is Ben Orlin's site, "Math with Bad Drawings." Here is a sample:
To find limericks previously posted in this blog, use the SEARCH box in the right-hand column OR follow this link.
Heated Limerick by Madeleine Begun Kane
One-hundred degrees? I may swoon.
Yes, I’m singing a very hot tune.
And I’m down in the mouth
Cuz this isn’t the south,
But Bayside, New York — early June.
At her long-standing and encyclopedic website, madkane.com, Kane offers lots more limericks -- and instructions for writing a limerick -- and also math-humor.
A wonderful source of math-humor and limericks is Ben Orlin's site, "Math with Bad Drawings." Here is a sample:
A limerick for mathematicians -- by Ben Orlin |
This next clever limerick -- originally first posted in this blog back in March 2010, has been attributed to Leigh Mercer:
A clever computational limerick -- by Leigh Mercer |
To find limericks previously posted in this blog, use the SEARCH box in the right-hand column OR follow this link.
Labels:
Ben Orlin,
Leigh Mercer,
Madeleine Begun Kane
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Out of Nothing -- A Strange New Universe
Shashi Thutupalli is a scientist -- in Bangalore, India -- who enjoys poetry and often explores the connections between poetry and mathematics. He has shared with me several samples of his work and I offer below the opening page (of three) of Thutupalli's poem, "Out of Nothing I Have Created a Strange New Universe." (The full poem, together with artwork, is available in Visual Verse -- at this link.)
Page 1 of 3 -- the entire poem is found here at VisualVerse.org. |
Also in Visual Verse is Thutupalli's "Dimensional Reduction' -- at this link.
Monday, June 24, 2019
Counting to seventy . . .
I am exited by last week's news that Oklahoma poet-- and member of the Muskogee Nation -- Joy Harjo has been appointed Poet Laureate of the United States. Harjo came to poetry via music and she sees in poetry a way of making connections and building understanding.
Struggling through complexity to understanding is a similarity between poetry and mathematics. Beyond that basic connection, however, Harjo's poetry is not closely linked to mathematics. EXCEPT: One of her poems (found online at PoetryFoundation.org) follows a strict syllable count. In a birthday tribute to a friend who has turned seventy, Harjo has produced a seventy-line poem in which the syllable counts proceed as 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 69, 70. (In the terminology of OULIPO, Harjo has produced a growth-only snowball.) Here are the opening lines of Harjo's poem:
from Becoming Seventy by Joy Harjo
arrived
when the days
grew legs of night.
Struggling through complexity to understanding is a similarity between poetry and mathematics. Beyond that basic connection, however, Harjo's poetry is not closely linked to mathematics. EXCEPT: One of her poems (found online at PoetryFoundation.org) follows a strict syllable count. In a birthday tribute to a friend who has turned seventy, Harjo has produced a seventy-line poem in which the syllable counts proceed as 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 69, 70. (In the terminology of OULIPO, Harjo has produced a growth-only snowball.) Here are the opening lines of Harjo's poem:
from Becoming Seventy by Joy Harjo
Knoxville, December 27, 2016, for Marilyn Kallet’s 70th birthday.
This poem was constructed to carry any memory you want to hold close.
Wearrived
when the days
grew legs of night.
Friday, June 21, 2019
Connecting with BRIDGES . . .
Bridges Math-Arts Conferences have become an annual summer tradition and this year's conference is July 16-20 in Linz, Austria. One of the participants in this year's Mathematical Poetry Program is University of British Columbia Professor Susan Gerofsky -- and I offer her "Desert Poem" below. Gerofsky's poem was constructed using a permutation pattern called PH4 (from bell-ringing) and an explanation follows the poem.
Desert Poem by Susan Gerofsky
Wings over dry land
Over wings, land dry
Over land, wings dry
Land over dry wings
Land dry over wings
Dry land wings over
Dry wings land over
Wings dry over land --
Wings over dry land.
Desert Poem by Susan Gerofsky
Wings over dry land
Over wings, land dry
Over land, wings dry
Land over dry wings
Land dry over wings
Dry land wings over
Dry wings land over
Wings dry over land --
Wings over dry land.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Love, marriage, and number . . .
Australian poet Richard Scutter has online collection of his own poems (this link leads to a chronological listing) and of favorite poems (go to this link and scroll down) by himself and others. Here are samples:
Marriage Mathematics
each one bending
to a heavenly plus
couple greater value
1 + 1 = 3 + ...
... and serious if a series starts
but the minus of hell
when one leaves
2 – 1 = 0
Marriage Mathematics
each one bending
to a heavenly plus
couple greater value
1 + 1 = 3 + ...
... and serious if a series starts
but the minus of hell
when one leaves
2 – 1 = 0
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Solve a puzzle -- find a poem!
At Canada's Capilano University, Lisa Lajeunesse teaches in mathematics in the School of STEM -- and is an enthusiastic promoter of links between mathematics and the arts. At the 2018 Bridges Math-Arts Conference she presented this paper on "Poetry Puzzles"; a sample puzzle is offered below.
all the numbers are there --
you can then read the poem
from your solved square.
Place 2 or 4 or 1 or 3
in each cell that is free.
When you finish each number should show
once in each column and once in each row.
When you've filled in each cell --all the numbers are there --
you can then read the poem
from your solved square.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Sailboat Mathematics
Celebrated on June 2 at the Joaquin Miller Poetry Series Washington DC's Rock Creek Nature Center, poetry by winners of the Jacklyn Potter Young Poets Competition, sponsored by The Word Works, Inc. One of these winners, Julien Berman, is a student at Georgetown Day School and a prize winning writer and accomplished violinist AND a member of the GDS Math team.
Here is Julien's winning poem:
Sailboat Mathematics by Julien Berman
A stretched canvas tarp
Not ungainly in style, but again not cut in a perfect polygon.
A wooden beam or two
Slung upwards and out, at ninety degrees.
Here is Julien's winning poem:
Sailboat Mathematics by Julien Berman
A stretched canvas tarp
Not ungainly in style, but again not cut in a perfect polygon.
A wooden beam or two
Slung upwards and out, at ninety degrees.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Have fun with "The Pi Song"
Often we celebrate the number pi -- ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, an infinite non-repeating decimal that begins with 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 . . .. Pi is a bridge between day-to-day mathematics that nearly all of us know and mathematics that is complex and difficult.
My own celebration of Pi includes these earrings -- but I have friends and former colleagues in the Bloomsburg University Department of Mathematics and Digital Sciences that celebrate Pi in a far more entertaining way -- in song. Here is a link to the YouTube version of "The Pi Song" with lyrics by Bill Calhoun and Kevin Ferland and performed by "Professor Parody (Kevin Ferland). Performance credits are found here. And here is a link to some more details about the song.
Here is a link to a previous posting with more mathy song lyrics by Bill Calhoun.
My own celebration of Pi includes these earrings -- but I have friends and former colleagues in the Bloomsburg University Department of Mathematics and Digital Sciences that celebrate Pi in a far more entertaining way -- in song. Here is a link to the YouTube version of "The Pi Song" with lyrics by Bill Calhoun and Kevin Ferland and performed by "Professor Parody (Kevin Ferland). Performance credits are found here. And here is a link to some more details about the song.
Here is a link to a previous posting with more mathy song lyrics by Bill Calhoun.
Monday, June 3, 2019
Celebrating Walt Whitman . . .
Last Friday -- May 31, 2019 -- was the 200th anniversary of the birth of American poet, Walt Whitman and the website of the Academy of American Poets offers poems by Whitman and background information to enrich our celebration. Here, from his oft-revised-and-expanded Leaves of Grass (Signet Classics, 1960), is a poem -- "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" -- with mention of mathematics. (Much of Whitman's work is available online here at Project Gutenberg.)
WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Delicious Geometry. . .words from Bertrand Russell
Sometimes we find that words presented as prose are poetic . . . as these words of British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970):
At the age of eleven, I began Euclid,
with my brother as my tutor. This was one
of the great events of my life, as dazzling
as first love. I had not imagined
that there was anything so delicious in the world.
More thoughtful quotes from Russell may be found here.
At the age of eleven, I began Euclid,
with my brother as my tutor. This was one
of the great events of my life, as dazzling
as first love. I had not imagined
that there was anything so delicious in the world.
— Bertrand Russell Autobiography: 1872-1914, (Routledge, 2nd Ed. 2000, p. 30).
More thoughtful quotes from Russell may be found here.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
2019 Student Math-Poetry -- FREE Poster
MATH-POETRY POSTER!
A GREAT item for a classroom bulletin board!
Late in 2018 Maryland math students were invited to enter a math-poetry contest (go here and scroll down for contest rules) -- the winners were celebrated at the 2019 January Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore and also here in this blog. A poster of the winning poems is shown below AND is available by request from the American Mathematical Society, email: paoffice AT ams.org.
Labels:
AMS,
Brooke Johnston,
Kelin Torres-Rodas,
Tina Xia
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Seek . . . and Find
This blog has more than a thousand posts -- and many have been discovered as the days passed and are not organized by topic. To explore, simply scroll down and encounter a variety of math-poetic views. If you visit this post for March 18, 2019 you will find a list of titles and links to all of the previous posts. If you are seeking a post on a particular topic, perhaps you will want to use the SEARCH feature in the right column of the blog. For example, if you enter "math women" you get this list of postings. The SEARCH entry term "imaginary" leads to these posts. Enjoy!
Friday, May 17, 2019
Poetic roots -- square, cube, . . .
In the 2008 film, "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Kumar offers a poem, "Square Root of Three" -- a poem attributed to Dave Feinberg, and Feinberg has this to say about it:
I wrote it during a high school biology class. A couple guys from my high school went on to write the Harold and Kumar movies, and they modified my poem for their movie. Originally, the poem began "I'm sure that I will never see a poem as lovely as root three," and it ended "when multiplied we stand up tall but when divided we will fall." I don't remember what else changed for the movie.
In my email correspondence with Feinberg, he offered me a new poem to present here in my blog -- a sequel to the square root poem and a poem offered first here in his blog -- a poem about the CUBE root of three; enjoy:
The Cube Root Of Three by Dave Feinberg
I take the cake, you must agree,
for I'm a cube root of a three!
There must be three of me to make
a product you cannot mistake.
I wrote it during a high school biology class. A couple guys from my high school went on to write the Harold and Kumar movies, and they modified my poem for their movie. Originally, the poem began "I'm sure that I will never see a poem as lovely as root three," and it ended "when multiplied we stand up tall but when divided we will fall." I don't remember what else changed for the movie.
In my email correspondence with Feinberg, he offered me a new poem to present here in my blog -- a sequel to the square root poem and a poem offered first here in his blog -- a poem about the CUBE root of three; enjoy:
The Cube Root Of Three by Dave Feinberg
I take the cake, you must agree,
for I'm a cube root of a three!
There must be three of me to make
a product you cannot mistake.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
If 1718 is a poem title . . .
If 1718 is a poem title,
the poem should celebrate Marie Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799)
author of the first book about both differential and integral calculus.
This post celebrates not only Agnesi (who was born 301 years ago today) but also present-day mathematician and writer Evelyn Lamb who produces lively and informative articles about STEM topics and people. Go here to read Lamb's article about Agnesi for the Smithsonian Magazine on May 16, 2018 -- celebrating Agnesi's 300th birthday.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
I'm tired of being a zero vector . ..
there are more to figures than ever meets the eye
Inexhaustible GOOGLE has led me to a website "The Best Philippine Short Stories" which contains not only stories but also artwork and poems. Eileen Tupaz, now a central character in Quezon City's White Space Wellness Studio, has given me permission to include samples of her math poems first published by BPSS -- poems written in 2000 when she was a student at Ateneo de Manila University.
Poems by Eileen Tupaz
soulmateswe are all of us
nonsingular creatures
whose identities
must be affirmed
before our inverses
can be found
Monday, May 13, 2019
Dinner at a Math Conference . . .
A strong advocates of humanistic mathematics -- supporting links between mathematics and the arts -- is Greg Coxson, both a poetry fan and a Research Engineer in the Department Electrical and Computer Engineering at the US Naval Academy. Greg has been, over the years of this blog, a valuable contributor of information about mathy poems and poets. Recently Greg has turned his hand to some poetry of his own -- and he has sent me this:
Crawfish Dinner at a Computational Theory Conference
Offered by our host as a gift of local color,
They look up innocently from their pile,
Radiant in their trim carmine carapaces.
Next, there are the computational theorists
Many of them from a more formal continent
Some are my heroes I am seeing up-close now,
Not from photos at the end of reference sections.
Crawfish Dinner at a Computational Theory Conference
by Greg Coxson
In this drama, the crawfish come off the bestOffered by our host as a gift of local color,
They look up innocently from their pile,
Radiant in their trim carmine carapaces.
Next, there are the computational theorists
Many of them from a more formal continent
Some are my heroes I am seeing up-close now,
Not from photos at the end of reference sections.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
What is TIME?
Recently I have been reflecting on the capacity for multiple meanings -- a feature that strongly links mathematics and poetry; with this similarity in mind, I present a thought-provoking couplet, an epigram from one of my favorite poets, Rabindranath Tagore:
'I have created the worlds,' proclaims Time.
'And we have created you,' the clocks chime.
'I have created the worlds,' proclaims Time.
'And we have created you,' the clocks chime.
From Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology, eds. Krishna Dutta, Andrew Robinson (Picador, 1997)
Monday, May 6, 2019
Celebrating math teachers
This week (May 6-10) is
US Teacher Appreciation Week 2019
Celebrate your teachers with poems!
This link leads to lots of previously-posted poems about math teachers.
Here is a sample (remembering my high school math teacher, Laura Church):
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