The term butterfly effect has entered everyday vocabulary from the mathematics of chaos theory and refers to the possibility of a major event (such as a tornado) starting from something so slight as the flutter of a butterfly wing. This sensitivity to small changes is a characteristic of chaotic systems. Recent news in Science magazine (9 May 2014) has drawn my attention to sea butterflies -- and the effect that ocean acidification is having on the lives of these tiny, fragile creatures -- and the environmental warning that this portends. From the details offered in Science, I have constructed this poem of 4x4 square-stanzas:
Warned by Sea Butterflies by JoAnne Growney
Sea butterflies --
no larger than
a grain of sand,
named for the way
Monday, June 30, 2014
Friday, June 27, 2014
Of all geometries, feathery is best . . .
The title for this post comes from Twinzilla (The Word Works, 2014), by Charleston poet Barbara Hagerty. The title character of this collection is one of several poetic personalities that inhabit Hagerty's verse, and she offers a playful view of life's dualities -- sometimes versed in mathematical terminology. Here's a sample.
Twinzilla Cautions * by Barbara G. S. Hagerty
Do not accept packages from unknown persons.
Beware non-native strangers who may be concealing
hazardous contraband "down there."
Question algebra. Dismantle thoughts traveling
the brain's baggage carousel in parabolas.
Twinzilla Cautions * by Barbara G. S. Hagerty
Do not accept packages from unknown persons.
Beware non-native strangers who may be concealing
hazardous contraband "down there."
Question algebra. Dismantle thoughts traveling
the brain's baggage carousel in parabolas.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Is mathematics discovered or invented?
My neighbor, Glenn, is fond of asking math-folks that he meets the question "Is mathematics discovered or invented?" -- and when he asked the question of MAA lecturer William Dunham the response was one word, delivered with a smile, "Yes." The question of invention versus discovery -- which may apply to poetry or to mathematics -- is thoughtfully considered in "Notes toward a Supreme Fiction" by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955); here are a few lines from that poem.
from It Must Give Pleasure, VII by Wallace Stevens
He imposes orders as he thinks of them,
As the fox and the snake do. It is a brave affair.
Next he builds capitols and in their corridors,
from It Must Give Pleasure, VII by Wallace Stevens
He imposes orders as he thinks of them,
As the fox and the snake do. It is a brave affair.
Next he builds capitols and in their corridors,
Labels:
discover,
invent,
mathematics,
order,
poetry,
Wallace Stevens,
William Dunham
Friday, June 20, 2014
Three thousand, and two
Here is a small poem richly vivid with the contrasts of opposites:
beside a stone three
thousand years old: two
red poppies of today
by Christine M. Krishnasami, India, found in This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World (selected by Naomi Shihab Nye, Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996).
beside a stone three
thousand years old: two
red poppies of today
by Christine M. Krishnasami, India, found in This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World (selected by Naomi Shihab Nye, Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996).
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Found: Elementary Calculus
Here is a poem by Saskatchewan poet Karen Solie.
Found by Karen Solie
Elementary Calculus
From Elementary Calculus A. Keith and W. J. Donaldson.
Glasgow: Gibson, 1960.
Speed (like distance)
is a magnitude and has no
direction; velocity (like displacement)
has magnitude and direction.
Found by Karen Solie
Elementary Calculus
From Elementary Calculus A. Keith and W. J. Donaldson.
Glasgow: Gibson, 1960.
Speed (like distance)
is a magnitude and has no
direction; velocity (like displacement)
has magnitude and direction.
Labels:
calculus,
direction,
Karen Solie,
magnitude,
mathematics,
poem,
second,
speed,
zero
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Number theory is like poetry
Austrian-born Olga Taussky-Todd (1906-1995) was a noted and prolific mathematician who left her homeland for London in 1935 and moved on to California in 1945. Her best-known work was in the field of matrix theory (in England during World War II she started to use matrices to analyze vibrations of airplanes) and she also made important contributions to number theory. In the math-poetry anthology, Against Infinity, I found a poem by this outstanding mathematician.
Labels:
Against Infinity,
mathematics,
mathmatician,
matrix,
number theory,
Olga Taussky-Todd,
poetry,
woman
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
And Now I See . . .
One of the ways we overcome our nervous shyness about our disabilities is by talking about them, and writing about them. And by encountering the poetry of Kathi Wolfe. I enjoy her work out-loud -- she is a frequent performer of her poems at local DC-area venues -- and on the page.
Kathi's "Blind Ambition" (in which she speaks of the monsters in arithmetic) is offered below; I first discovered this poem when it was posted by Split this Rock as poem of the week.
Kathi's "Blind Ambition" (in which she speaks of the monsters in arithmetic) is offered below; I first discovered this poem when it was posted by Split this Rock as poem of the week.
Labels:
addition,
arithmetic,
blind,
Kathi Wolfe,
multiplication,
poetry,
Split This Rock
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Literary works by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898, aka Lewis Carroll) are crammed with mentions of mathematics. One of my favorites (found here with numerous others, including "Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, Derision") is this exchange from Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland
Labels:
Charles Lutwidge Dodson,
impossible,
Lewis Carroll,
paradox
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Behind the cards -- mathematics
A couple of weeks ago at an MAA math lecture by Alissa Crans on the Catalan numbers, I sat near card-trick mathematician Colm Mulcahy. And I asked him if he knew any poems about card tricks and their mathematics.
Though he at first said "no," Mulcahy turned out to have a couple of connections up his sleeve. From Matthew Wright he learned of "The Card Players" -- a colorful sonnet from Philip Larkin's 1974 collection High Windows and available here with selections of Adriaen Brouwer's art.
And Bruce Reznick reminded him of the lyrics for "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. The complete lyrics may be found here; I include below a stanza that offers some instruction about counting.
Though he at first said "no," Mulcahy turned out to have a couple of connections up his sleeve. From Matthew Wright he learned of "The Card Players" -- a colorful sonnet from Philip Larkin's 1974 collection High Windows and available here with selections of Adriaen Brouwer's art.
And Bruce Reznick reminded him of the lyrics for "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. The complete lyrics may be found here; I include below a stanza that offers some instruction about counting.
Labels:
Alissa Crans,
bet,
Bruce Reznick,
card,
Catalan numbers,
Colm Mulcahy,
count,
Fiorello,
Kenny Rogers,
Matthew Wright,
Philip Larkin,
poem,
poker,
politics,
Sheldon Harnick,
trick
Friday, May 30, 2014
Squirrel Arithmetic
My maternal grandfather, James Edgar Black (1871-1931) was a western Pennsylvanian, a carpenter, and a man I never knew. But Ed, one of my cousins, found among our grandfather's long-stored things a scrapbook of collected poems and other miscellany that he recently passed on to me.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Phenomenal Woman
Yesterday morning Maya Angelou (1928-2014) left us. But she has not left us alone. Her voice is with us, cheering us to be more than we were, to be all that we can become. Places to read her words and words about her include PoetryFoundation.org (scroll down past the bio for links to poems), Poets.org, The Washington Post, and Angelou's website.
Angelou's poetry is filled with the geometry and motion of womanhood. For example:
Angelou's poetry is filled with the geometry and motion of womanhood. For example:
Labels:
geometry,
Maya Angelou,
motion,
phenomenal,
woman
Sunday, May 25, 2014
How many grains of sand?
Recently one of my friends used "all the grains of sand" as an example of an infinite set "because it is impossible to count them all" and -- even as I rejected his answer -- I wondered how many of my other friends might agree with it. In the following poem, mathematician Pedro Poitevin considers a similar question as he reflects on the countability of the birds in the night sky.
Divertimentum Ornithologicum by Pedro Poitevin
After Jorge Luis Borges's Argumentum Ornithologicum.
A synchrony of wings across the sky
is quavering its feathered beats of flight.
Their number is too high to count -- I try
Divertimentum Ornithologicum by Pedro Poitevin
After Jorge Luis Borges's Argumentum Ornithologicum.
A synchrony of wings across the sky
is quavering its feathered beats of flight.
Their number is too high to count -- I try
Labels:
count,
hyperfinite,
inductive,
infinite,
Jorge Luis Borges,
less,
more,
natural number,
Pedro Poitevin
Friday, May 23, 2014
Math rap
Harry Baker is a Slam Champion who studies Maths at Bristol University, UK -- and his poetry sometimes features math, often having fun with the topic. His web page has a link to a rap about maths and at the JMM reading in Boston in 2012, Baker submitted this rap, 59 (a love story, now on YouTube), for presentation that evening.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Public Image of a Mathematician
From John Dawson -- a professor emeritus of mathematics at the Penn State York campus and well-known for his publications in mathematical logic, often focusing on the life and work of Kurt Godel -- a poem on a topic that this blog visits from time to time, portraits of mathematicians.
Public Image by John W. Dawson, Jr.
Please,
I'm not an accountant.
No,
Mine doesn't always balance either.
What do I do then?
Well,
On good days
I prove theorems;
Public Image by John W. Dawson, Jr.
Please,
I'm not an accountant.
No,
Mine doesn't always balance either.
What do I do then?
Well,
On good days
I prove theorems;
Labels:
accountant,
John Dawson,
Kurt Godel,
logic,
mathematician,
mathematics,
poem
Friday, May 16, 2014
Pound on poetry and mathematics
HERE at PoetryFoundation.org we find an article by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), published in POETRY Magazine in 1916, in which Sandburg offers highest praise to poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972). Sandburg includes this quote from a 1910 essay by Pound that connects poetry and mathematics.
The complete article is available here.
And, in a footnote* to the poem "In a Station of the Metro" -- found in my Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry we find a bit more of Pound's mathematical thinking.
"Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations,
not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres and the like, but equations
for the human emotions. If one have a mind which inclines to magic
rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations
as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite."
The complete article is available here.
And, in a footnote* to the poem "In a Station of the Metro" -- found in my Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry we find a bit more of Pound's mathematical thinking.
Labels:
abstract,
Carl Sandburg,
equation,
Ezra Pound,
figure,
mathematics,
Metro,
poetry,
sphere,
triangle
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Land without a square
Here is a bit of light verse from the pen of John Updike (1932-2009).
ZULUS LIVE IN LAND
WITHOUT A SQUARE by John Updike
A Zulu lives in a round world. If he does not leave his reserve.
he can live his whole life through and never see a straight line.
--headline and text from The New York Times
In Zululand the huts are round,
The windows oval, and the rooves
Thatched parabolically. The ground
Is tilled in curvilinear grooves.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Barbie (b 1959) said (c 1990) "math is hard"
On April 24 I had the pleasure of reading at the Nora School with Martin Dickinson and Michele Wolf. Back in March I had posted Dickinson's "Homage to Euclid" but mathematics is not a a focus of Wolf's work. However, her poem below about Barbie has numbers, and any mention of Barbie reminds me of the controversy over "math is hard" -- one of the speeches uttered by an early 90's version of this doll. (Please visit this posting from June 14, 2010 -- on "Girls and Mathematics" for additional Barbie-comments and more Barbie poetry.) Here, now, please enjoy Wolf's poem:
Barbie Slits Open Her Direct-Mail Offer to Join AARP
by Michele Wolf
My worth is most inflated when, on tiptoes, I pose
In my original box, never handled, especially if I date
Back to '59 or '60. But that is rare. I am more used
To breaking out, to being the damp flamingo
Pecking to leave the shell. I prefer moving forward.
I was an astronaut in '65, a surgeon in '73. Last year
Barbie Slits Open Her Direct-Mail Offer to Join AARP
by Michele Wolf
My worth is most inflated when, on tiptoes, I pose
In my original box, never handled, especially if I date
Back to '59 or '60. But that is rare. I am more used
To breaking out, to being the damp flamingo
Pecking to leave the shell. I prefer moving forward.
I was an astronaut in '65, a surgeon in '73. Last year
Labels:
almost,
Barbie,
girls,
math,
mathematics,
metaphor,
Michele Wolf,
poetry
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
May 6, 1954
I learned about it via a news broadcast on Pittsburgh radio station KDKA and, for some reason, the event stuck firmly in my memory. I was 13 years old and on May 6, 1954 Roger Bannister ran a mile in less than 4 minutes. The integer 4 is a perfect square as was Bannister's age then -- 25. Alternatively, 13 is prime. As is 60 + 13 = 73. Yesterday marked 60 years since Bannister broke the record. I have come to love running. And playing with numbers.
I . . . never
will run out
of numbers.
I . . . never
will run out
of numbers.
Labels:
perfect square,
prime,
Roger Bannister,
running
Sunday, May 4, 2014
A pure mathematician (not!)
Poet Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943) was known for his humorous verse. Here is "A Pure Mathematician" -- a poem that stereotypes mathematicians in familiar, unflattering ways (from The Laughing Muse (Harper Brothers, 1915)). In contrast to Guiterman's verse that pokes fun at mathematicians, I invite you to visit this posting from 28 January 2011 to read Sherman Stein's "Mathematician" -- a poem that not only is more fair to the profession but also features a female mathematician.
A Pure Mathematician by Arthur Guiterman
Let Poets chant of Clouds and Things
In lonely attics!
A Nobler Lot is his, who clings
To Mathematics.
Sublime he sits, no Worldly Strife
His Bosom vexes,
Reducing all the Doubts of Life
To Y's and X's.
A Pure Mathematician by Arthur Guiterman
Let Poets chant of Clouds and Things
In lonely attics!
A Nobler Lot is his, who clings
To Mathematics.
Sublime he sits, no Worldly Strife
His Bosom vexes,
Reducing all the Doubts of Life
To Y's and X's.
Labels:
Arthur Guiterman,
hypoetenuse,
logarithm,
mathematician,
mathematics,
portrait,
pure
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Math, Magic, Mystery -- and so few women
Today, April 30, is the final day of Mathematics Awareness Month 2014; this year's theme has been "Mathematics, Magic and Mystery" and it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the most interesting men of mathematics; educated as a philosopher, Martin Gardner wrote often about mathematics and sometimes about poetry. Gardner described his relationship to poetry as that of "occasional versifier" -- he is the author, for example, of:
π goes on and on
And e is just as cursed
I wonder, how does π begin
When its digits are reversed?
π goes on and on
And e is just as cursed
I wonder, how does π begin
When its digits are reversed?
Monday, April 28, 2014
Words that warn
Somewhere in a high school English class was a small topic that intrigues me still -- "questions that expect the answer 'yes'." A door opened. Letting me see that what we say has expectations as well as information. In graduate school math classes we considered the warning word "obviously" -- in a proof, it was likely to mean "I'm sure it's true but am not able to explain."
As I muse today about language I am wondering how unsaid words affect the population of women in mathematics, affect the numbers (too small) of women publishing mathematics. Thinking about this in the light of a wonderful time on Saturday greeting visitors to an AWM (Association for Woman in Mathematics) booth at the biennial USA Science and Engineering Festival. Temple University professor and AWM member Irina Mitrea did an amazing job planning and coordinating the AWM booth where hundreds of young people got some hands-on experience with secret codes and ciphers.
As I muse today about language I am wondering how unsaid words affect the population of women in mathematics, affect the numbers (too small) of women publishing mathematics. Thinking about this in the light of a wonderful time on Saturday greeting visitors to an AWM (Association for Woman in Mathematics) booth at the biennial USA Science and Engineering Festival. Temple University professor and AWM member Irina Mitrea did an amazing job planning and coordinating the AWM booth where hundreds of young people got some hands-on experience with secret codes and ciphers.
Labels:
AWM,
cipher,
code,
elliptical,
Harryette Mullen,
Irina Mitrea,
mathematics,
poem,
Poetry Foundation
Friday, April 25, 2014
Too many selves
In my childhood home, numbers were used with care and precision. There would be teasing when I would use the adverb "too" --- as if when I said "I had to walk too far" I had tried to describe an unbounded distance, greater than any possible span. Now as an adult I continue to be cautious (and intrigued) with use of that word. And I am drawn to the uses of "too many" and "count" in the following poem from David Orr, poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review.
The Chameleon by David Orr
Alone among the superheroes,
He failed to keep his life in balance.
Power Man, The Human Shark--they knew
To hold their days and nights in counterpoise,
Their twin selves divided together,
As a coin bears with ease its two faces.
The Chameleon by David Orr
Alone among the superheroes,
He failed to keep his life in balance.
Power Man, The Human Shark--they knew
To hold their days and nights in counterpoise,
Their twin selves divided together,
As a coin bears with ease its two faces.
Monday, April 21, 2014
A Cento from Arcadia
Last week I had the enjoyable privilege of visiting with mathematician-poet Marion Cohen's math-lit class, "Truth and Beauty" at Arcadia University -- and the class members helped me to compose a Cento (given below), a poem to which each of us contributed a line or two of poetry-with-mathematics. Participants, in addition to Dr. Cohen and me, included these students:
Theresa, Deanna, Ian, Collin, Mary, Grace, Zahra, Jen, Jenna,
Nataliya, Adeline, Quincy, Van, Alyssa, Samantha, Alexis, Austin.
Big thanks to all!
Theresa, Deanna, Ian, Collin, Mary, Grace, Zahra, Jen, Jenna,
Nataliya, Adeline, Quincy, Van, Alyssa, Samantha, Alexis, Austin.
Big thanks to all!
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Remembering Nina Cassian
Exiled Romanian poet Nina Cassian (1924-2014) died last week in Manhattan. Cassian was an outspoken poet whom I admired for her political views; she also was connected to mathematics -- in her subject matter and her friends. (See, for example, this posting from January 31, 2011.)
Equality by Nina Cassian
If I dress up like a peacock,
you dress like a kangaroo.
If I make myself into a triangle,
you acquire the shape of an egg.
If I were to climb on water,
you'd climb on mirrors.
All our gestures
Belong to the solar system.
"Equality" is in Cheerleaders for a Funeral (Forrest Books, 1992), translated by the author and Brenda Walker.
Equality by Nina Cassian
If I dress up like a peacock,
you dress like a kangaroo.
If I make myself into a triangle,
you acquire the shape of an egg.
If I were to climb on water,
you'd climb on mirrors.
All our gestures
Belong to the solar system.
"Equality" is in Cheerleaders for a Funeral (Forrest Books, 1992), translated by the author and Brenda Walker.
Labels:
Brenda Walker,
equality,
mathematics,
Nina Cassian,
poetry,
Romania,
triangle
Friday, April 18, 2014
Poetry of Romania - Nora School, Apr 24
During several summers teaching conversational English to middle-school students in Deva, Romania, I became acquainted with the work of Romanian poets. These included: Mikhail Eminescu (1850-1889, a Romantic poet, much loved and esteemed, honored with a portrait on Romanian currency), George Bakovia (1881-1957, a Symbolist poet, and a favorite poet of Doru Radu, an English teacher in Deva with whom I worked on some translations of Bacovia into English), Nichita Stanescu (1933-1983, an important post-war poet, a Nobel Prize nominee -- and a poet who often used mathematical concepts and images in his verse).
On April 24, 2014 at the Nora School here in Silver Spring I will be reading (sharing the stage with Martin Dickinson and Michele Wolf) some poems of Romania -- reading both my own writing of my Romania experiences and some translations of work by Romanian poets. Here is a sample (translated by Gabriel Praitura and me) of a poem by Nichita Stanescu:
On April 24, 2014 at the Nora School here in Silver Spring I will be reading (sharing the stage with Martin Dickinson and Michele Wolf) some poems of Romania -- reading both my own writing of my Romania experiences and some translations of work by Romanian poets. Here is a sample (translated by Gabriel Praitura and me) of a poem by Nichita Stanescu:
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Dimensions of a soul
In the poem below, Young Smith uses carefully precise terms of Euclidean geometry to create a vivid interior portrait.
She Considers the Dimensions of Her Soul by Young Smith
The shape of her soul is a square.
She knows this to be the case
because she often feels its corners
pressing sharp against the bone
just under her shoulder blades
and across the wings of her hips.
She Considers the Dimensions of Her Soul by Young Smith
The shape of her soul is a square.
She knows this to be the case
because she often feels its corners
pressing sharp against the bone
just under her shoulder blades
and across the wings of her hips.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
A Vector Space Poem
As a Columbia undergraduate, media artist Millie Niss (1973-2009) majored in mathematics and was enrolled in a math PhD program at Brown University when she decided to make writing her full-time career. Before her untimely death in 2009 Niss was well-established in Electronic Literature. Here is a link to "Morningside Vector Space," one of the poems at Niss's website Sporkworld (at Sporkworld, click on the the E-poetry link).
Niss's electronic poem retells a story (inspired by the Oulipian Raymond Queneau's Exercises de Style) in many different styles and following many different constraints. The computer is central to the retelling as the text varies almost smoothly along two dimensions, controlled by the position of the mouse pointer in a colored square (to the right in the screen-shot below). Behind this poetry is the mathematical concept of a two-dimensional vector space, in which each point (or text) has a coordinate with respect to each basis vector (version of the text, or dimension along which the text can change).
Niss's electronic poem retells a story (inspired by the Oulipian Raymond Queneau's Exercises de Style) in many different styles and following many different constraints. The computer is central to the retelling as the text varies almost smoothly along two dimensions, controlled by the position of the mouse pointer in a colored square (to the right in the screen-shot below). Behind this poetry is the mathematical concept of a two-dimensional vector space, in which each point (or text) has a coordinate with respect to each basis vector (version of the text, or dimension along which the text can change).
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Fractal Geometry
Lee Felice Pinkas is one of the founding editors of cellpoems -- a poetry journal distributed via text message. I found her poem,"The Fractal Geometry of Nature" in the Winter/Spring 2009 Issue (vol.14, no 1) of Crab Orchard Review.
The Fractal Geometry of Nature by Lee Felice Pinkas
Most emphatically, I do not consider
the fractal point of view as a panacea. . .
--Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010)
Father of fractals, we were foolish
to expect a light-show from you,
hoping your speech would fold upon itself
and mimic patterns too complex for Euclid.
The Fractal Geometry of Nature by Lee Felice Pinkas
Most emphatically, I do not consider
the fractal point of view as a panacea. . .
--Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010)
Father of fractals, we were foolish
to expect a light-show from you,
hoping your speech would fold upon itself
and mimic patterns too complex for Euclid.
Labels:
Benoit Mandelbrot,
complex,
dimension,
Euclid,
fractal,
geometry,
Lee Felice Pinkas,
pattern,
repeated,
roughness,
self-similarity,
simple,
snowflake
Monday, April 7, 2014
April Celebrates Poetry and Mathematics
On April 1 (the first day of National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month) Science writer Stephen Ornes offered a guest post at The Last Word on Nothing entitled "Can an Equation be a Poem?" and on April 2 the Ornes posting appeared again, this time in the blog Future Tense at Slate.com with the title "April Should Be Mathematical Poetry Month."
In her comment on "Can an Equation be a Poem?" Scientific American blogger Evelyn Lamb (Roots of Unity) mentioned her math-poetry post on March 21 entitled "What T S Eliot Told Me About the Chain Rule." Lamb quotes lines from the final stanza "Little Gidding," the last of Eliot's Four Quartets. Here is the entire stanza with its emphasis on the mysteries of time and perspective, the circular nature of things, the difficulty of discovering a beginning.
In her comment on "Can an Equation be a Poem?" Scientific American blogger Evelyn Lamb (Roots of Unity) mentioned her math-poetry post on March 21 entitled "What T S Eliot Told Me About the Chain Rule." Lamb quotes lines from the final stanza "Little Gidding," the last of Eliot's Four Quartets. Here is the entire stanza with its emphasis on the mysteries of time and perspective, the circular nature of things, the difficulty of discovering a beginning.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Logic in limericks
In these lines, Sandra DeLozier Coleman (who participated in the math-poetry reading at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore in January) speaks as a professor reasoning in rhyme, explaining truth-value technicalities of the logical implication, "If p then q" (or, in notation, p -- > q ).
The Implications of Logic by Sandra DeLozier Coleman
That p --> q is true,
Doesn’t say very much about q.
For if p should be false,
Then there’s really no loss
In assuming that q could be, too.
The Implications of Logic by Sandra DeLozier Coleman
That p --> q is true,
Doesn’t say very much about q.
For if p should be false,
Then there’s really no loss
In assuming that q could be, too.
Labels:
conditional,
false,
implication,
limerick,
logic,
professor,
Sandra DeLozier Coleman,
true
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Can you SEE the monument?
Links to non-intersecting celebrations of April
as National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month
as National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month
Recently I revisited my copy of Elizabeth Bishop: The Compete Poems, 1927-1979 (FSG, 1999) and turned to "The Monument" -- a poem mathematically interesting for its geometry. Here are the opening lines; the complete text and many other Bishop poems are available online here:
from The Monument by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.
Labels:
angle,
box,
Carol Frost,
cube,
Elizabeth Bishop,
half-way,
line,
monument,
parallel,
side
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Split This Rock 2014 was great!
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Women's History -- celebrate Caroline Herschel
In the sixties when I spent a year at Bucknell University, I was a member of the "Department of Astronomy and Mathematics," a pairing of related disciplines. In past centuries, Mathematics was included in the liberal arts. In the twenty-first century often it is paired with Computer Science, and Astronomy is paired with Physics. And so it goes.
Poems by Laura Long tell of the pioneering work by astronomer Caroline Herschel -- a discoverer of eight comets, a cataloger of stars. Long describes her recent collection, The Eye of Caroline Herschel: A Life in Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2013), in this way:
This is a work of the imagination steeped in historical siftings
and the breath between the lines.
Here is the opening poem:
Poems by Laura Long tell of the pioneering work by astronomer Caroline Herschel -- a discoverer of eight comets, a cataloger of stars. Long describes her recent collection, The Eye of Caroline Herschel: A Life in Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2013), in this way:
This is a work of the imagination steeped in historical siftings
and the breath between the lines.
Here is the opening poem:
Labels:
astronomy,
calculate,
Caroline Herschel,
comet,
imagination,
Laura Long,
mathematics,
star
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Homage to Euclid
In my preceding post (20 March 2014) Katharine Merow's poem tells of the new geometries
developed with variations of Euclid's Parallel Postulate.
Martin Dickinson's poem, on the other hand, tells of richness within Euclid's geometry.
Homage to Euclid by Martin Dickinson
What points are these,
visible to us, yet revealing something invisible—
invisible, yet real?
Labels:
apple,
circle,
Euclid,
infinity,
Innisfree,
lines,
Martin Dickinson,
math,
Nora School,
oblong,
parallelogram,
poetry,
points,
postulates,
rhomboid,
space,
sphere
Thursday, March 20, 2014
One geometry is not enough
Writer Katharine Merow is in the Publications Department of the Washington DC headquarters of the MAA (Mathematical Association of America) and she is one of the poets who participated in the "Reading of Poetry with Mathematics" at JMM in Baltimore last January. Here is the engaging poem Merow read at that event -- a poem that considers the 19th century development of new and "non-euclidean" geometries from variants of Euclid's fifth postulate, the so-called parallel postulate:
Geometric Proliferation by Katharine Merow
Geometric Proliferation by Katharine Merow
Labels:
Euclid,
geometry,
JMM Poetry Reading,
Katharine Merow,
MAA,
noneuclidean,
parallel,
postulate
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Making something of nothing
Was zero invented or discovered? When and how? By whom? In "The Origin of Zero" -- an article published in 2009 in in Scientific American -- John Matson introduces an interesting history of zero (something vs. nothing and so on...). Recently through the Splendid Wake poetry project (with an open-to-all meeting on Friday March 21 -- go here for details) I have connected with Washington DC poet William Rivera who has shared with me this poem that also examines the puzzle of the somethingness of nothing.
Nothing Changes Everything by William Rivera
Nothing Changes Everything by William Rivera
Labels:
atom,
black hole,
discover,
invent,
nothing,
recycling,
Splendid Wake,
universe,
William Rivera,
X,
zero
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Tomorrow is Pi Day
Tomorrow is Pi Day and I offer no new poems but supply links to several previous posts. Poetry of π may be found on 23 August 2010 (an "irrational sonnet" by Jacques Bens), 6 September 2010 (featuring work by Kate Bush, Robert Morgan and Wislawa Szymborska), 10 September 2010 (mnemonics for π, especially from Mike Keith) , 15 March, 2011,(a poem by Lana Hechtman Ayers) 27 November 2011 (a poem by Brian McCabe) and 10 March 2013 (the opening lines of a poem "3.141592 . . ." by Peter Meinke).
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Tragedy of the Commons
Thinking in syllable-squares,
recalling ecologist Garrett Hardin (1915-2003)
and his 1968 wisdom, "Tragedy of the Commons."
recalling ecologist Garrett Hardin (1915-2003)
and his 1968 wisdom, "Tragedy of the Commons."
Maximum
may not be
optimum.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
SHE measures the heavens . . .
Today is International Women's Day, celebrated with a charming video at google.com and here with lines from Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE), the earliest woman known to me who was both poet and mathematician.
The true woman who possesses exceeding wisdom,
She consults a tablet of lapis lazuli,
She gives advice to all lands,
She measures off the heavens, she places the
measuring cords on the earth.
These lines (found in the preface, translated from Sumerian sources by Ake W Sjoberg and E Bergmann S J) and much more poetry-with-math are found in Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters, 2008) -- a collection edited by Sarah Glaz and me.
The true woman who possesses exceeding wisdom,
She consults a tablet of lapis lazuli,
She gives advice to all lands,
She measures off the heavens, she places the
measuring cords on the earth.
These lines (found in the preface, translated from Sumerian sources by Ake W Sjoberg and E Bergmann S J) and much more poetry-with-math are found in Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters, 2008) -- a collection edited by Sarah Glaz and me.
Labels:
Enheduanna,
love,
mathematics,
measuring,
poems,
Strange Attractors,
wisdom
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A poetry album by Lucille Clifton
March is Women's History Month and here, today, I celebrate by acknowledging a special woman, Lucille Clifton (1936-2010). From 1979–1985 Clifton served as Poet Laureate of Maryland. Her poetry celebrates both her African-American heritage and her womanhood. Here is "album," a poem in Clifton's spare and un-capitalized style -- and containing a few numbers to help us keep track of the times that are changing.
album by Lucille Clifton
album by Lucille Clifton
Labels:
African-American,
album,
Lucille Clifton,
numbers,
poetry,
woman,
Women's History Month
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Sociology of Numbers
Robert Dawson is a mathematics professor at St Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia -- an active mathematician who complements his research activity with mathematics education and with poetry. The following Dawson poem appeared here in 2013 -- in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, a journal whose every issue contains some poetry-with-mathematics.
Some Contributions to the Sociology of Numbers by Robert Dawson
The ones you notice first are the natural numbers.
Everybody knows their names; they are the anchors,
the stars, the alphas, the reference points. And of course
the rational numbers, who hang out with them,
sit next to them in arithmetic class.
Some Contributions to the Sociology of Numbers by Robert Dawson
The ones you notice first are the natural numbers.
Everybody knows their names; they are the anchors,
the stars, the alphas, the reference points. And of course
the rational numbers, who hang out with them,
sit next to them in arithmetic class.
Labels:
denominator,
fraction,
irrational,
mathematics,
natural,
numbers,
numerator,
numerology,
poetry,
Pythagorean,
Robert Dawson
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Long division is difficult . . .
Last Monday included a visit with old friends of whom I see too little, Silver Spring artist Mark Behme -- with whom I did some art-poetry collaboration a few years back -- and Chevy Chase artist-writer-economist-activist, Kyi May Kaung. After lunch at nearby Mandalay we three walked to Mark's studio and hung out for a while, admiring and talking about his new work. When I arrived home, I dug out several poems developed from Mark's sculpture -- finding some pieces I'd not thought about for a while. Here is one of these, a mathy poem that partners with Mark's "Split Tales."
Which Girl Am I? by JoAnne Growney
Which Girl Am I? by JoAnne Growney
The girl who’s not forced to divide
into the good girl and the real one
is a lucky one. I was
eleven
when I felt a crack begin.
Labels:
art,
division,
girl,
JoAnne Growney,
Kyi May Kaung,
Mark Behme,
math,
poetry,
sculpture,
split,
two
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Angles in Alaska
Last Thursday evening I was honored to read in Takoma Park's Third Thursday poetry series -- along with poets Judy Neri and Kathleen O'Toole -- and my reading focused on poems of my times in Alaska. The brilliant geometry of our 49th state affected me strongly and "Angles of Light" became the title poem for a chapbook I published with Finishing Line Press in 2009. Here is section 3 (of 7) from that poem.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Excitement of Proving a Theorem
Wow! From first sighting, I have loved this description:
I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
These lines from "Geometry" by Rita Dove express -- as well as any string of twenty-four words I can think of -- the excitement experienced from proving a theorem.
I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
These lines from "Geometry" by Rita Dove express -- as well as any string of twenty-four words I can think of -- the excitement experienced from proving a theorem.
Labels:
Black History Month,
geometry,
mathematics,
Poet Laureate,
poetry,
proof,
Rita Dove,
theorem
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Wartime recurrence
In mathematics, it is not unusual to define an entity using a recurrence relation.
For example, in defining powers of a positive integer:
The 2nd power of 7 may be defined as 7 x 71 ;
the 3rd power of 7 may be defined as 7 times 72,
and the 4th power is 7 times 73,
and, in general, for any positive integer n, 7n+1 = 7 x 7n.
Several weeks ago I attended a reading of fine poetry here in Silver Spring at the Nora School -- a reading that featured DC-area poets Judith Bowles, Luther Jett, and David McAleavey. I was delighted to hear in "Recessional" -- one of the poems presented that evening by Jett -- the mathematical pattern of recurrence, building stepwise with a potentially infinite number of steps (as with the powers of 7, above) into a powerful poem. I include it below:
For example, in defining powers of a positive integer:
The 2nd power of 7 may be defined as 7 x 71 ;
the 3rd power of 7 may be defined as 7 times 72,
and the 4th power is 7 times 73,
and, in general, for any positive integer n, 7n+1 = 7 x 7n.
Several weeks ago I attended a reading of fine poetry here in Silver Spring at the Nora School -- a reading that featured DC-area poets Judith Bowles, Luther Jett, and David McAleavey. I was delighted to hear in "Recessional" -- one of the poems presented that evening by Jett -- the mathematical pattern of recurrence, building stepwise with a potentially infinite number of steps (as with the powers of 7, above) into a powerful poem. I include it below:
Labels:
Beltway,
Luther Jett,
Nora School,
poetry reading,
recurrence
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Mother Courage -- and speaking of opposites
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a poet, but I have not found mathematics in his poems. Still, I want to note here a fantastic performance of his play, Mother Courage and her Children, starring Kathleen Turner and a talented ensemble at Washington,DC's Arena Stage. Invited by my neighbors, Mitzi and Pati, I joined them yesterday for a riveting performance. Here is a link to "How Fortunate the Man with None," a Brecht poem heartily sung as "Solomon's Song" in the current musical production.
And here, with a nod to the mathematical bent of this blog, is a quote from Brecht's Mother Courage that involves counting; also, it is one of many examples of a strategy that Brecht uses often and well -- encouraging an idea by speaking of its opposite.
And here, with a nod to the mathematical bent of this blog, is a quote from Brecht's Mother Courage that involves counting; also, it is one of many examples of a strategy that Brecht uses often and well -- encouraging an idea by speaking of its opposite.
Labels:
Bertolt Brecht,
counting,
Mother Courage,
opposite,
peace,
poet,
war,
word play
Monday, February 10, 2014
To love, in perfect syllables
While looking for Valentine verse with a math connection, I opened my copy of The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll (Chancellor Press, 1982). And found this one in which Carroll (a pen name for English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodson (1832-1898)) uses the word one twice and the word half twice and has counted sounds so that in each line the number of syllables is either a cube of an integer or is perfect.
Lesson in Latin by Lewis Carroll (May 1888)
Lesson in Latin by Lewis Carroll (May 1888)
Labels:
Charles Lutwidge Dodson,
count,
cube,
half,
Lewis Carroll,
love,
mathematician,
mathematics,
one,
Pablo Neruda,
perfect,
Valentine
Friday, February 7, 2014
Love and Mathematics -- Please be my Valentine!
Poet extraordinaire Maxine Kumin (1925-2014) died yesterday.
Late in 2007, AKPeters released Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics, edited by Sarah Glaz and me. Recently at a Howard County Math Festival I met a young man who browsed my copy of this anthology and found it the perfect Valentine. And so might you. Below I include a sample from the collection -- a love sonnet by Jean de Sponde (1557-1595), translated from the French by David Slavitt.
Several previous postings have offered love poems of mathematics and mathematicians;
these include 9 February 2013, 12 February 2012, 12 February 2011, 10 November 2011,
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Six Million
Sometimes numbers become labels for particular events. When I was growing up, all of us knew 1492 as a label for the discovery of America. And 1941 recognized Pearl Harbor. The following selection from a poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) reminds us of the awful importance of 6 million.
While mentioning this poem of witness and remembering, I want also to remind you of the very special Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, to held in Washington, DC, March 27-30, 2014. (Early-bird registration ends on Valentine's Day, February 14th at midnight.) Hope to see you there.
While mentioning this poem of witness and remembering, I want also to remind you of the very special Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, to held in Washington, DC, March 27-30, 2014. (Early-bird registration ends on Valentine's Day, February 14th at midnight.) Hope to see you there.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Forecasting snow and poetry
Snowbound
is that other world
in which no schedules sit
and no ambitions flare
to interrupt the bluest sky
and whitest field
and coldest air
is that other world
in which no schedules sit
and no ambitions flare
to interrupt the bluest sky
and whitest field
and coldest air
Friday, January 31, 2014
On shoulders of giants . . .
Washington, DC is a city rich with both poetry and mathematics. Last Tuesday evening I attended a Mathematical Association of America (MAA) lecture by author and math historian William Dunham (whom I knew when he taught for a bunch of years at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College, in Eastern Pennsylvania, not so far from my employer, Bloomsburg University). Dunham spoke of insights gained by many hours reading the correspondence of British mathematician and scientist, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). The discoverer of "gravity," and, moreover, both a genius and a disagreeable man. Still, Newton was a man who gave a nod to his predecessors, "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants."
Labels:
David Arns,
fluxions,
gravity,
MAA,
mathematician,
poem,
Principia,
Sir Isaac Newton,
William Dunham
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Little Boxes
It is hard to know what to say.
Pete Seeger died yesterday at age 94.
94 = 2 x 47. 47 is prime.
Here is a link to Pete singing "Little Boxes."
Song lyrics are poems.
Pete Seeger died yesterday at age 94.
94 = 2 x 47. 47 is prime.
Here is a link to Pete singing "Little Boxes."
Song lyrics are poems.
Graffiti Calculus
In my dreams I am an artist -- a cartoonist, perhaps, or a graffiti artist -- so skilled with lines and curves and so clever that my art gives pleasure AND delivers a punch.
And so I am gratefully into the math-art connections provoked by a new book by Mary-Sherman Willis -- aptly titled Graffiti Calculus (CW Books, 2013). I first met Willis in December, at Cafe Muse (where I will read next Monday, Feb 3 with Stephanie Strickland) and it was my pleasure also to hear her read again from that collection at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. These poems by Willis give us, in sixty poetic chapters, the story of a mother seeking her son by following his graffiti tags through the city. Here is a sample, sections 5 and 6:
And so I am gratefully into the math-art connections provoked by a new book by Mary-Sherman Willis -- aptly titled Graffiti Calculus (CW Books, 2013). I first met Willis in December, at Cafe Muse (where I will read next Monday, Feb 3 with Stephanie Strickland) and it was my pleasure also to hear her read again from that collection at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. These poems by Willis give us, in sixty poetic chapters, the story of a mother seeking her son by following his graffiti tags through the city. Here is a sample, sections 5 and 6:
Labels:
calculus,
continuous,
function,
graffiti,
integer,
JMM Poetry Reading,
limit,
Mary-Sherman Willis,
mathematics,
poet
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Mathematics is like . . .
For angling may be said to be so like the mathematics,
that it can never be fully learnt; at least not so fully,
but that there will still be more new experiments left
for the trial of other men that succeed us.
Izaak Walton (1594-1683), The Compleat Angler (1653-1676)
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Extraneous -- and so on
Since my junior high math days, when I first heard the word "extraneous," I have loved the sound of it, the feel of my mouth when I say it, the mystery of how solving an equation can lead to extra solutions. And then learning to check found-solutions to see if they were true solutions -- a process that has been multiply useful to me far afield from mathematics.
My love for this math-word drew me quickly to the title of a poem by Alex Walsh, a high school student from Oberlin, Ohio, who presented her work at the poetry-with-math reading at JMM in Baltimore last Friday. Here are her poems "Convergence" and "The Extraneous Solution" :
My love for this math-word drew me quickly to the title of a poem by Alex Walsh, a high school student from Oberlin, Ohio, who presented her work at the poetry-with-math reading at JMM in Baltimore last Friday. Here are her poems "Convergence" and "The Extraneous Solution" :
Labels:
Alex Walsh,
convergence,
extraneous,
infinite,
JMM Poetry Reading,
math,
mathematician,
permutation,
poetry,
polynomial
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Word problems
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (a Times book by S. Mullainathan and E. Shafir, released last September) considers not only the facts but the feelings of scarcity and finds similarities between those those with too little time and those with too little money. The authors report, further, that persons experiencing scarcity do not have the luxury of doing well in their studies -- of mathematics or poetry -- because the scarcity demands their first attention.
And . . . this connection between external environment and a student's learning brings me to a poem by Dian Sousa, a poem that gives us some things to think about.
And . . . this connection between external environment and a student's learning brings me to a poem by Dian Sousa, a poem that gives us some things to think about.
Labels:
calculate,
Dian Sousa,
equation,
math,
problem,
scarcity,
word problem
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Poems and primes
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Friday morning, 1-17-2014, looking north from the Baltimore Convention Center |
Labels:
Baltimore,
Ben Orlin,
Douglas Norton,
Euclid,
JMM Poetry Reading,
limerick,
math,
mathematics,
poetry,
primes
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Poetry-with-math, Jan 17, Baltimore
Please join us!
A Reading of Poetry with Mathematics
Friday, January 17, 2014 4:30 - 6:30 PM
Room 308 Baltimore Convention Center
Room 308 Baltimore Convention Center
Sunrise gives
each of us
a shadow.
Labels:
2014,
Baltimore,
Gizem Karaali,
JHM,
JMM Poetry Reading,
mathematics,
poetry
Monday, January 13, 2014
Writing mathy poems - a student activity
On the web-page of mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz I found a link to this file of math-related poems that she prompted students to write when she visited an Arcadia University class session of "Truth and Beauty: A Course in Mathematics and Literature" taught by mathematician-poet Marion Cohen. The writing was prompted by an activity-list developed by mathematician-poet Carol Dorf. Poems by Whitney Boeckel and Olivia Lantz particularly caught my eye and, with their permission, I present them here:
Friday, January 10, 2014
The discipline of mathematics
This poem remembers one of my students.
The Prince of Algebra by JoAnne Growney
Madam Professor,
let me introduce myself.
I'm Albert James,
whom you may know
by my test score
that's lower than my age.
The Prince of Algebra by JoAnne Growney
Madam Professor,
let me introduce myself.
I'm Albert James,
whom you may know
by my test score
that's lower than my age.
Labels:
age,
algebra,
clock,
JoAnne Growney,
mathematics,
professor,
score,
teacher
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Martin Gardner, again
This past weekend a review by Teller (magician of the Penn & Teller team) of an autobiography of Martin Gardner appeared in the NYTimes Book Review. According to Teller, Gardner (1914-2010) wrote the memoir, Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner, at the age of 95 on an old electric typewriter in his single-room assisted-living apartment in Norman, Oklahoma.
Labels:
double acrostic,
magic,
Martin Gardner,
mathematical,
poem,
rhyme,
time,
Tom Hood
Friday, January 3, 2014
Count what counts
When I visited Iceland last month, I looked in the bookstores of Reykjavik for bilingual (Icelandic-English) poetry collections; I found none. I did, however, acquire a copy of The Sayings of the Vikings (Gudrun Publishing, 1992), a translation by Bjorn Jonasson of Hávamál -- "sayings of the high one" -- from the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking era and attributed to Odin. Here are several samples that involve number or measurement:
The Nature of Hospitality
I would be invited
everywhere
if I needn't eat at all.
The Nature of Hospitality
I would be invited
everywhere
if I needn't eat at all.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
2013 (and prior) -- titles, dates of posts
Scroll
down to find dates and titles (with links) of posts in 2013. At the bottom are links to posts through 2012 and 2011 -- and all the way back to March 2010 when this
blog was begun. This link leads to a PDF file that lists searchable topics and names of poets and mathematicians presented herein.
Dec 30 Error Message Haiku
Dec 26 The angel of numbers . . .
Dec 23 Ah, you are a mathematician
Dec 20 Measuring Winter
Dec 30 Error Message Haiku
Dec 26 The angel of numbers . . .
Dec 23 Ah, you are a mathematician
Dec 20 Measuring Winter
Monday, December 30, 2013
Error Message Haiku
Found at Komplexify.com, a variety of (often-amusing) mathematical verses -- including a collection of Error Message Haiku. Approaching a New Year, I have been reflecting on my device-dependencies and considering resolutions about them -- and musing over some of these wistful substitutions for machine messages I dread:
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Labels:
computer,
error message,
haiku,
Komplexify,
memory
Thursday, December 26, 2013
The angel of numbers . . .
This poem by Hanns Cibulka (1920 - 2004) -- translated from the German by Ewald Osers -- is collected in the anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics, edited by Sarah Glaz and me (A K Peters, 2008).
Mathematics by Hanns Cibulka (trans. Ewald Osers)
And the angel of numbers
is flying
from 1 to 2...
—Rafael Alberti
Mathematics by Hanns Cibulka (trans. Ewald Osers)
And the angel of numbers
is flying
from 1 to 2...
—Rafael Alberti
Monday, December 23, 2013
Ah, you are a mathematician
Thanks to Arturo Sangalli of the Writer's Union of Canada -- and fellow-participant in a recent Banff creativity conference -- who reminded me of this poem. And thanks to Bill Dunham who has spread it widely by including it in The Mathematical Universe (Wiley, 1997). These brief stanzas were written in the early 1990s when many of us kept our financial facts in checkbooks rather than online; still current, however, is the mistaken image of mathematicians as those whose task it is to keep numbers clean and orderly.
Misunderstanding by JoAnne Growney
Ah, you are a mathematician,
they say with admiration
or scorn.
Misunderstanding by JoAnne Growney
Ah, you are a mathematician,
they say with admiration
or scorn.
Labels:
Arturo Sangalli,
balance,
Christmas,
digits,
JoAnne Growney,
mathematical,
mathematician,
numbers,
pi,
William Dunham
Friday, December 20, 2013
Measuring Winter
Thomas Campion (1567-1620) was an English composer, physician, and poet. I found this poem at poetryfoundation.org.
Now Winter Nights Enlarge by Thomas Campion
Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Now Winter Nights Enlarge by Thomas Campion
Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Sieve of Eratosthenes
The Sieve of Eratosthenes by Robin Chapman
He was an ancient Greek
looking for primes,
those whole numbers divisible
only by 1 and themselves,
those new arrivals on the block,
fresh additions to the stock
of indivisibles spilling through
future time (for what is time
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Amounting to Something
From the Fall/Winter 2013 issue of Poet Lore, a poem by David Wagoner about the arithmetic of expectations:
Amounting to Something by David Wagoner
You were supposed to do that
by saving yourself up
like coins in a pig rescued
just in time sometimes
from in front of the candy counter
or the desk in the corridor
Amounting to Something by David Wagoner
You were supposed to do that
by saving yourself up
like coins in a pig rescued
just in time sometimes
from in front of the candy counter
or the desk in the corridor
Labels:
add,
amount,
calculation,
counting,
David Wagoner,
divide,
multiply,
questions,
subtract
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
13 lads of Christmas
In addition to waterfalls and geysers and the Aurora, Iceland has outstanding museums. On the morning of December 10, I visited the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik -- and enjoyed a careful introduction to the history of this fascinating and friendly nation. Something I missed, however, was seeing one of the 13 Yuletide Lads that are an Icelandic tradition and who visit the Museum one-by-one on the 13 days before Christmas, each wearing
traditional costume and trying to pilfer the goodies he
likes best.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Iceland -- poetry, stones
British translator and editor David McDuff blogs at "Nordic Voices in Print" -- a site that he uses as "a way of making some of my translations of Nordic poetry and prose available online." Here is "stones" -- the third of a group of ten poems he has posted by Icelandic poet Sjón. This one involves a few numbers and I present it here as a math-poetry token of the fascinating land I am planning to visit: a five-day Iceland vacation adventure, traveling with my Eastern Village neighbors Priscilla and Glenn.
stones by Sjón (translated by David McDuff)
stones by Sjón (translated by David McDuff)
Labels:
David McDuff,
Iceland,
numbers,
poem,
Sjon,
stones,
translation
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Conversational mathematics
In recent weeks I have been experimenting with poems that use mathematical terminology, wondering whether -- since there are readers who are undaunted by unknown literary references (to Dante's Divine Comedy or Eliot's Prufrock, for example) -- some readers will relish a poem with unexplained mathematical connections. In this vein I have offered "Love" (posted on on November 5) and now give the following poem, "Small Powers of Eleven are Palindromes":
Labels:
Catalan,
cube,
irrational,
JoAnne Growney,
language,
mathematics,
number,
palindrome,
perfect,
poem,
power,
twin primes
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