The lines below are copied from a posting made on September 20, 2014 -- posted as I finalized plans to travel to New York City for a climate march. From that March I saw some positive action BUT I am grieving over the changes in the last 100 days.
To have a small carbon footprint I will march tomorrow with only a
small sign -- one that wears a 3x3-square reminder that dates back to a 1968 essay, "Tragedy of the Commons," by ecologist Garrett Hardin (1915-2003).
There is no
place to throw
that ' s away.
WHY
is it taking us so long to act to preserve a habitable planet? Do we
not care about the world we are leaving for our grandchildren?
Friday, April 28, 2017
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Math-Arts Journal -- Free Access
Sometimes an email contains a wonderful gift -- such was the case recently when I got a message from the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts giving me access AT THIS LINK to a generous collection of outstanding articles from the 10-year history of this important publication. One of the articles relates to poetry: Niccolò Tartaglia's poetic solution to the cubic equation, by Arielle Saiber of Bowdoin College in Maine.
The collection of free articles notes this history of JMA: "The journal took shape following a meeting arranged by the late Reza Sarhangi at the 2005 Bridges [Math-Arts] Conference, where Kate Watt from Taylor & Francis met with a group of interested conference participants. Following a group proposal led by Gary Greenfield, the journal launched in 2007 with Gary as editor for the first five volumes. Craig S Kaplan then took over as editor in 2012, until he handed the reins to current editor Mara Alagic at the beginning of 2017. BIG THANKS to all of you for this noteworthy journal!
Here, from Saiber's article, are a few lines from
Veronica Gavagna's translation of Tartaglia's Quando chel cubo:
The collection of free articles notes this history of JMA: "The journal took shape following a meeting arranged by the late Reza Sarhangi at the 2005 Bridges [Math-Arts] Conference, where Kate Watt from Taylor & Francis met with a group of interested conference participants. Following a group proposal led by Gary Greenfield, the journal launched in 2007 with Gary as editor for the first five volumes. Craig S Kaplan then took over as editor in 2012, until he handed the reins to current editor Mara Alagic at the beginning of 2017. BIG THANKS to all of you for this noteworthy journal!
Here, from Saiber's article, are a few lines from
Veronica Gavagna's translation of Tartaglia's Quando chel cubo:
Monday, April 24, 2017
Poetry and Science -- Allies in Discovery
Poet Jane Hirshfield read onstage as part of the March for Science in Washington, DC on Saturday April 22. Science and poetry both arise from the same desire for exploration, Hirshfield opined. “If you don’t think at all, you think of them as opposites,” she said. “They are allies in discovery.”
Hirshfield's staged poem, "On the 5th Day," appeared in the Washington Post a few days before the march. Here are its opening stanzas (visit the Post link for the complete work.)
On the Fifth Day by Jane Hirshfield
On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.
The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
Hirshfield's staged poem, "On the 5th Day," appeared in the Washington Post a few days before the march. Here are its opening stanzas (visit the Post link for the complete work.)
On the Fifth Day by Jane Hirshfield
On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.
The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Remembering Karl Patten
From my Lewisburg, PA friend, Ruta Karelis, I have recently learned of the April 16 death of my beloved first poetry teacher, Bucknell professor and poet, Karl Patten (1927-2017). Karl's oft-repeated phrase (and poem title) "Every Thing Connects" -- found on my shelf in The Impossible Reaches (Dorcas Press, 1992) -- is on my mind daily. Another poem from that collection -- "The Play" -- I am reading and rereading today, remembering the poet. Here it is, from Karl Patten, for you.
The Play by Karl Patten
You're tired? I'm tired too. Let's forget we're people, forget all that.
You be a horizon, infinite, flat, a forever-place,
I'll be double, gray-blue ocean, gray-blue sky, touching you, just.
The Play by Karl Patten
You're tired? I'm tired too. Let's forget we're people, forget all that.
You be a horizon, infinite, flat, a forever-place,
I'll be double, gray-blue ocean, gray-blue sky, touching you, just.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Poetry by Victorian Scientists
Thanks to Greg Coxson who has recently alerted me to this 2011 article by Paul Collins in New Scientist, "Rhyme and reason: The Victorian poet scientists." In the article, Collins is reviewing an anthology edited by Daniel Brown entitled The Poetry of Victorian Scientists: Style, Science and Nonsense (Cambridge University Press, Reprint-2015).
The article has links to poetry by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), William J. Macquorn Rankine (1820-1872), and James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897). Below I offer two of the eight entertaining stanzas from Rankine's poem, "The Mathematician in Love." (This poem and Maxwell's "A Lecture on Thomson's Galvanometer" also appear in the wonderful anthology that Sarah Glaz and I edited -- Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters/CRC Press, 2008, now available as an e-book.)
from The Mathematician in Love by William J Macquorn Rankine
The article has links to poetry by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), William J. Macquorn Rankine (1820-1872), and James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897). Below I offer two of the eight entertaining stanzas from Rankine's poem, "The Mathematician in Love." (This poem and Maxwell's "A Lecture on Thomson's Galvanometer" also appear in the wonderful anthology that Sarah Glaz and I edited -- Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters/CRC Press, 2008, now available as an e-book.)
from The Mathematician in Love by William J Macquorn Rankine
Friday, April 14, 2017
A Fib for Easter
Recently a reader commented privately to me that she did not like the Fib as a poem-style since it seems to allow almost any prose statement to be formed into a poem. My opposite reaction to her comment stems, in part, from my use of the Fib with workshop students -- many of them join me with delight at the way the Fib syllable-count format has guided them to pleasing word-selections.
As Easter approaches, my thoughts have been shaped into these lines:
Soon
comes
Easter,
holiday
to celebrate spring's
victory of life over death.
As Easter approaches, my thoughts have been shaped into these lines:
Soon
comes
Easter,
holiday
to celebrate spring's
victory of life over death.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Mathematics and Poetry are . . .
This week between Palm Sunday and Easter is a school vacation week for six of my grandchildren -- Carly and Emma, Shaya and Daniel, Serena and Caroline -- who live in the Washington, DC area. And so I am enjoying their company rather than developing new blog posts. But I do have a few relevant Poetry-Math words (found at goodreads.com) from Amit Ray:
“Mathematics and poetry are the two ways
to drink the beauty of truth.”
― Amit Ray
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Prime -- with rhythm and rhyme
Earlier this year, an email from James D. Herren let me know about his recent e-book, Wit and Wonder, Poetry with Rhythm and Rhyme -- a collection developed to be enjoyed by readers from 5th grade onward. Herren is an advocate of energetic rhyming verse, AND his collection has some mathy stuff -- including these two little poems. Thanks, Dave!
Prime by James D Herren
Our love is prime –
Divisible by none
But you and I,
For you and I Are One.
Prime by James D Herren
Our love is prime –
Divisible by none
But you and I,
For you and I Are One.
Labels:
James D Herren,
parallel,
perpendicular,
prime
Monday, April 3, 2017
Math-Stat Awareness Month -- find a poem!
APRIL is Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month
AND
National Poetry Month!
Celebrate with a MATHY POEM, found here in this blog! Scroll down!
AND
National Poetry Month!
Celebrate with a MATHY POEM, found here in this blog! Scroll down!
If you are looking for mathy poems on a particular topic, the SEARCH box in the right-column may help you find them. For example, here is a link to posts found when I searched using the term "parallel." And here are posts that include the term "angle." To find a list of additional useful search terms, scroll down the right-hand column.
For your browsing pleasure, here are the titles and dates of previous blog postings,
moving backward from the present. Enjoy!
Mar 31 Math and poetry in filmMar 28 Split this Rock, Freedom Plow Award, April 21
Mar 27 Math-themed poems at Poets.org
Mar 23 Remember Emmy Noether!
Friday, March 31, 2017
Math and poetry in film
One of my delights in the last year has been viewing films about poets and mathematicians. First, "The Man Who Knew Infinity" -- about the mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) and, more recently "Neruda" about the Chilean politician and poet, Pablo Neruda. And also, the film "Paterson" -- about a bus-driver poet named Paterson in the city of Paterson, NJ -- a city well-known for its earlier poet, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) who immortalized his hometown in his very long poem, "Paterson."
At the website Poets.org one may find 38 poems by William Carlos Williams and 11 poems by Pablo Neruda. At PoetryFoundation.org one may find find 27 poems by Pablo Neruda and 120 poems by William Carlos Williams and 15 poems by Ron Padgett.
Here is a link to my earlier posting of a poem by Jonathan Holden, "Ramanaujan."
I have included elsewhere in this blog several poems by Pablo Neruda
and offer links here: "28325674549," from "The Heights of Macchu Pichu,"
and here are links to my previous postings of two of his poems:
"The Roman Numerals" and "The Giraffe."
At the website Poets.org one may find 38 poems by William Carlos Williams and 11 poems by Pablo Neruda. At PoetryFoundation.org one may find find 27 poems by Pablo Neruda and 120 poems by William Carlos Williams and 15 poems by Ron Padgett.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Split this Rock, Freedom Plow Award, April 21
SPLIT THIS ROCK is a wonderful activist poetry organization -- based near to me in Washington, DC -- with a name based on a line by Langston Hughes.* As a strong supporter of their mission to use poetry for positive social change, I want to announce one of their very special programs:
In October, 2013, the Freedom Plow Award was won by Eliza Griswold -- see this blog posting to learn a bit about her work with the poetry of Afghan women.
*The name "Split This Rock" is pulled from a line in “Big Buddy,” a poem from Langston Hughes.
Don’t you hear this hammer ring?
I’m gonna split this rock
And split it wide!
When I split this rock,
Stand by my side.
And for a tiny mathy poem by Langston Hughes, go here.
Friday, April 21 | 6 pm |Arts Club of Washington, DC
The 2017 Freedom Plow Award for Poetry and Activism
Read about this years finalists,
Francisco Aragón, Andrea Assaf,
JP Howard, and Christopher Soto (aka Loma)
on Split This Rock's Website. Tickets may be purchased here. ($25 General, $10 Students).
In October, 2013, the Freedom Plow Award was won by Eliza Griswold -- see this blog posting to learn a bit about her work with the poetry of Afghan women.
*The name "Split This Rock" is pulled from a line in “Big Buddy,” a poem from Langston Hughes.
Don’t you hear this hammer ring?
I’m gonna split this rock
And split it wide!
When I split this rock,
Stand by my side.
And for a tiny mathy poem by Langston Hughes, go here.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Math-themed poems at Poets.org
The poetry website Poets.org is a wonderful source of thousands of poems. During one recent visit to the site, I saw that they have a collection of themes and, when I examined these themes, I found that one of these is "Math" -- and I enjoyed taking time to explore.
When I read mathy poems by non-maths often I am intrigued by their alterations of correct mathematical statements -- part of "poetic license." Non-maths can use intriguing language that I, with my mathematics background, could not allow myself to say. For example, George David Clark's poem "Kiss Over Zero" has this opening line:
I was delighted to find in this math-themed group several old favorites, one of which is "Counting" by Douglas Goetsch -- a poem among those Sarah Glaz and I gathered a few years back for the anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters / CRC Press, 2008) -- now available as an e-book.
When I read mathy poems by non-maths often I am intrigued by their alterations of correct mathematical statements -- part of "poetic license." Non-maths can use intriguing language that I, with my mathematics background, could not allow myself to say. For example, George David Clark's poem "Kiss Over Zero" has this opening line:
anything over zero is zero
I was delighted to find in this math-themed group several old favorites, one of which is "Counting" by Douglas Goetsch -- a poem among those Sarah Glaz and I gathered a few years back for the anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters / CRC Press, 2008) -- now available as an e-book.
Labels:
Douglas Goetsch,
George David Clark,
Poets.org,
Sarah Glaz
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Remember Emmy Noether!
On today's date in 1882, mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935) was born. Noether became fixed in my attention when, recently out of college, I saw her photo in a display at the New York World's Fair. Her life and her pioneering work became inspiration for me as I followed her in mathematics. I wrote a poem, "My Dance is Mathematics," in her honor; it begins with these words:
They called you der Noether, as if mathematics
was only for men. In 1964, nearly thirty years
past your death, I saw you in a spotlight
in a World's Fair mural, "Men of Modern Mathematics."
The complete poem, "My Dance is Mathematics," is available here. Its final statement is:
Scroll down -- or follow this link -- to still more poems that celebrate the women of mathematics.
They called you der Noether, as if mathematics
was only for men. In 1964, nearly thirty years
past your death, I saw you in a spotlight
in a World's Fair mural, "Men of Modern Mathematics."
The complete poem, "My Dance is Mathematics," is available here. Its final statement is:
They say she was good / For a woman.
Scroll down -- or follow this link -- to still more poems that celebrate the women of mathematics.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Is unreasonableness ever reasonable?
This morning I have been thinking about these words of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) that were part of the postings on the door of one of my mathematics colleagues at Bloomsburg (PA) University:
My reflections on the word "unreasonable" also led me back to this important article from 1960 -- "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences." (And I found here some analysis of the article.)
As a final comment on unreasonableness I offer "Atomic Split" -- a poem by another voice named Bernard Shaw. (Big thanks to mathematician, writer of both poetry and fiction, scholar extraordinaire -- and friend -- Robert Dawson, who alerted me to the fact that more than one writer carries this famous name.) This following poem I found here at poemhunter.com.
Atomic Split by Bernard Shaw
What a terrible thing to do,
Man has split the atom in two.
For peaceful purposes so we are told,
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
My reflections on the word "unreasonable" also led me back to this important article from 1960 -- "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences." (And I found here some analysis of the article.)
As a final comment on unreasonableness I offer "Atomic Split" -- a poem by another voice named Bernard Shaw. (Big thanks to mathematician, writer of both poetry and fiction, scholar extraordinaire -- and friend -- Robert Dawson, who alerted me to the fact that more than one writer carries this famous name.) This following poem I found here at poemhunter.com.
Atomic Split by Bernard Shaw
What a terrible thing to do,
Man has split the atom in two.
For peaceful purposes so we are told,
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Julia . . . Set Aside Gender Roles . . .
For me there is a special pleasure in finding in my reading a word like "identity" or "prime" that has a special mathematical meaning in addition to its ordinary usage. And, because poets work hard to capture multiple images in their work, poems are where such pleasure occurs most often. Poet and songwriter and professor Lawrence M. Lesser has beautifully connected the Julia Set of fractal geometry with his grandmother, Julia -- and he has given me permission to share his poem, "Julia," offered below. This poem is offered, along with other work by Lesser, in a Poetry Folder, "Moving Between Inner and Outer Worlds," in the most-recent issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
For more about Julia Sets, visit http://www.karlsims.com/julia.html. |
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Again we celebrate Pi !
Now I give -- I again enumerate π's digits, count out . . .
3.141592653 . . .
Tuesday, March 14, is Pi-day -- and I invite you to browse or SEARCH this blog for references to π / Pi and to learn more about Pilish (a language in which, as above, word-lengths follow the pattern of the digits of π). Here are a links to several of the postings available:
Rhymes to help you remember the digits of Pi
Poetry that imagines auctioning the digits of Pi
A Circle poem in Pilish
Friday, March 10, 2017
Circle of Silence -- and sexual harassment
Colonel Stacey K. Vargas is a professor of Physics at the Virginia Military Institute. I found her poem -- with its vicious circles -- in the wonderful and provocative anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace, edited by Carolyne Wright, M. L. Lyons, and Eugenia Toledo (Lost Horse Press, 2015).
Circle of Silence by Stacey K. Vargas
Like an electron trapped in an unstable orbit, I am seated in a circle of powerful men.
In an awkward moment small talk ends and the meeting abruptly begins.
The superintendent turns to me and says, "This was not sexual harassment."
I turn to the inspector general and say, "After everything you heard in this investigation,
you find this acceptable?"
The inspector general turns to my department head but remains silent.
Circle of Silence by Stacey K. Vargas
Like an electron trapped in an unstable orbit, I am seated in a circle of powerful men.
In an awkward moment small talk ends and the meeting abruptly begins.
The superintendent turns to me and says, "This was not sexual harassment."
I turn to the inspector general and say, "After everything you heard in this investigation,
you find this acceptable?"
The inspector general turns to my department head but remains silent.
Labels:
circle,
Lilly Ledbetter,
sexual harassment,
Stacey Vargas
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Honor Math-Women ...
The first math-woman that inspired me was Laura Church; the first famous math-woman (someone with a theorem named after her) whom I came to admire -- and write a poem about -- was Emmy Noether (1882-1935). As a recent film featuring NASA mathematician, Katherine Johnson, points out, math-women are:
Hidden figures:
women no one
notices are
changing the world.
Other living mathematicians who deserve to be more well-known include:
Maryam Mirzakhani,
an Iranian mathematician at Stanford who in 2014 won the prestigious Fields Medal for her work related to the symmetry of curved surfaces.Moon Duchin, a Tufts University professor who is using geometry to fight gerrymandering.
Cathy O'Neil, a data scientist (and blogger at mathbabe.org) whose recent book Weapons of Math Destruction helps readers to understand the roles (and threats) of big data in our society.
TODAY is the International Women's Day!
Celebrate the day by getting to know some math-women. Try for ten. Learn their names, read their bios. Here are two websites that can help:
Monday, March 6, 2017
The Geometry of Wood
A recent email from Todd Sformo, a biologist living in Barrow, Alaska, alerted me to his prose poem "Knots" in the online publication Hippocampus Magazine; a sample from "Knots" is offered below.
Sformo's poem, which offers vivid descriptions of geometric patterns in wood, uses as epigraph several sentences from the Polish mathematician Stanislaw M Ulam (1909-1984). (Ulam was involved in the wartime Manhattan Project and in the design of thermonuclear weapons.)
Sformo's poem, which offers vivid descriptions of geometric patterns in wood, uses as epigraph several sentences from the Polish mathematician Stanislaw M Ulam (1909-1984). (Ulam was involved in the wartime Manhattan Project and in the design of thermonuclear weapons.)
When I was a boy, I felt that the role of rhyme in poetry
was to compel one to find the unobvious
because of the necessity of finding a word which rhymes.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Zero is three!
February's second weekend was a busy one with the AWP Writer's conference in downtown Washington, DC -- and one of the special treats of that weekend was browsing the Book Fair, renewing connections and finding special books. One of my great finds was the bilingual collection of Jean Cocteau's Grace Notes (The Word Works, 2017), translated by Mary-Sherman Willis. Cocteau surely is a challenge for translators as he plays with with connections between disparate images; in the poem I offer below I much enjoyed the mathy connections -- person and number, three and zero, triangle and oval, and so on.
Labels:
Jean Cocteau,
Mary-Sherman Willis,
The Word Works
Thursday, February 23, 2017
The Geometry of Poetry
Some poems lie around for A LONG TIME waiting for me to pick them up. Or I pick them up and put them down in a special place and then place something else on top of them. Such is the case with Janet Kirchheimer's "The Geometry of Poetry" -- several years ago Janet and I corresponded and then I didn't follow through with posting her poem. And now, this week, I am working on a paper for Bridges 2017 -- a math-arts conference to be held in Waterloo, Ontario at the end of July -- and my working title is the same as the title of Janet's poem. AND, this coincidence helped me to FIND her poem to give you to enjoy.
I first read "The Geometry of Poetry" by Janet R. Kirchheimer online in Poemeleon -- and her work also has appeared in many other journals, anthologies and websites. She is currently
producing AFTER, a film that explores poetry written about the Holocaust. Thanks, Janet, for this poem with its mathy comparisons.
The Geometry of Poetry by Janet R. Kirchheimer Tuesday, February 21, 2017
An old link but a GOOD one!
Today I have been working on some ideas for a paper for the 2017 BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference and I have needed to refer back to an old paper of mine, "Mathematics in Poetry," that I wrote for MAA's JOMA more than 10 years ago -- a survey article that introduces a variety of viewpoints and examples. Enjoy!
Thursday, February 16, 2017
The Infinite
On page 53 of the February 6 issue of The New Yorker I recently found and enjoyed a poem entitled "The Infinite" by Charles Simic. Here are its opening lines:
The infinite yawns and keeps yawning.
Is it sleepy?
Does it miss Pythagoras?
The infinite yawns and keeps yawning.
Is it sleepy?
Does it miss Pythagoras?
Monday, February 13, 2017
Love and Mathematics -- and Valentine's Day
Perhaps you need a love poem for a mathematician, or about a mathematician -- you might enter the words love and mathematician in the search box to the right and find what this blog has to offer. And here is a link to previous postings that celebrate Valentine's Day. Enjoy!!
Read it (math OR poem) more than once . ..
Recently my poet-friend, Millicent Borges Accardi, sent me a copy of her latest book, Only More So (Salmon Poetry, 2016). She mentioned a poem entitled "The Night of Broken Glass" for its mathematics -- indeed it includes several numbers as it movingly describes attempts at normalcy amid the horrors of urban attack; and it ends with this stanza :
The essential business of living well
Continues in shock waves
That fall into the ground of innocent
People, triggered inside a soul
Of nothingness that pretended
To solve an impossible equation.
My favorite poem in Accardi's collection is "Amazing Grace" which I give you below. It is a poem that, like an intriguing piece of mathematics, I have read, and read again, and again . .. each time getting more meaning than the time before.
For me, one of the similarities of poetry and math is their density, the need for several readings -- for reading both aloud and silently, for reading with pencil and paper for note-taking, for reading in the library and at the kitchen table, sitting or standing.
The essential business of living well
Continues in shock waves
That fall into the ground of innocent
People, triggered inside a soul
Of nothingness that pretended
To solve an impossible equation.
My favorite poem in Accardi's collection is "Amazing Grace" which I give you below. It is a poem that, like an intriguing piece of mathematics, I have read, and read again, and again . .. each time getting more meaning than the time before.
For me, one of the similarities of poetry and math is their density, the need for several readings -- for reading both aloud and silently, for reading with pencil and paper for note-taking, for reading in the library and at the kitchen table, sitting or standing.
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Like James Baldwin - refuse labels!
Last Sunday evening -- instead of watching Super Bowl LI -- in a crowded theater in downtown Silver Spring I watched the recently-released documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," narrated using words of writer James Baldwin (1924-1986). Baldwin was a contrarian, he avoided or contradicted labels and categories.
One of my favorite quotes -- that I see as intimately related to discovery in mathematics (from Hungarian-American Nobelist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)) -- applies also to Baldwin:
Discovery is seeing
what everybody else has seen, and thinking
what nobody else has thought.
And here, from Jimmy's Blues & Other Poems (Beacon Press, 2014) is Baldwin's little poem "Imagination" which captures the same sort of mind-play that occurs with mathematics.
One of my favorite quotes -- that I see as intimately related to discovery in mathematics (from Hungarian-American Nobelist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)) -- applies also to Baldwin:
Discovery is seeing
what everybody else has seen, and thinking
what nobody else has thought.
And here, from Jimmy's Blues & Other Poems (Beacon Press, 2014) is Baldwin's little poem "Imagination" which captures the same sort of mind-play that occurs with mathematics.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Celebrate Francis Su
In this morning's email I got a link (Thanks, Greg Coxson!) to this story that celebrates the talented mathematician and compassionate human being, Francis Su. Dr Su (of Harvey Mudd College) has recently completed a term as president of the Mathematical Association of America. Here is a link to Dr Su's retiring presidential address -- for which he received a standing ovation. Read. Learn. Admire. Celebrate. Imitate!
Scrolling down in this blog to my posting for January 11, 2017 will lead you to links to several poems that celebrate mathematicians. And a blog-SEARCH using "mathematician" will find even more such poems. Enjoy!
A thorough advocate in a just cause,
a penetrating mathematician facing the starry heavens,
both alike bear the semblance of divinity.
-- Goethe (1749-1832)
Scrolling down in this blog to my posting for January 11, 2017 will lead you to links to several poems that celebrate mathematicians. And a blog-SEARCH using "mathematician" will find even more such poems. Enjoy!
A thorough advocate in a just cause,
a penetrating mathematician facing the starry heavens,
both alike bear the semblance of divinity.
-- Goethe (1749-1832)
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Groundhog Day 2017
My scan of this morning's Washington Post did not find a mention of today's important status as Groundhog Day -- and I am worried that perhaps the new President 45 has banned these useful creatures. If you wish, you may search this blog for postings related to Groundhog Day and, if you do, you can get these results. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Life is Short
These recent days in the reign of the 45th US President have given new drama to the word survival. Looking for wisdom I revisited this poem, a survival-poem with a couple of numbers -- by Maggie Smith -- found at one of my favorite sources for poetry, PoetryFoundation.org.
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Girls can do EVERYTHING!
In a conversation years ago with one of my math colleagues at Bloomsburg University, each of us learned that the other had grown up on a farm. My colleague credited the problem-solving requirements of farm-life with being good training for mathematics. In time, I came to agree with him. Some environments EXPECT you to be a problem-solver and, in spite of yourself, you comply. I have tried to write poetically about this. My efforts so far include these 3x3 syllable-square poems.
And, here is a link to a recent NPR story about the underestimates that girls make about how smart they are -- so little has changed since I was a girl. Hoping I can help to change things for my granddaughters!
Girls who change
light-bulbs change
everything!
Girls who prove
theorems can
do it all!
And, here is a link to a recent NPR story about the underestimates that girls make about how smart they are -- so little has changed since I was a girl. Hoping I can help to change things for my granddaughters!
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Ultimately, all mathematics is poetry . . .
A popular vote on the truth of "all mathematics is poetry" might not lead to its affirmation. Because mathematics is a concise language, with emphasis on placing the best words in the best order, it often is described by mathematicians and scientists as poetry. Alternatively, and more accessible to most readers than poetic mathematics, we find verses by poets who include the objects and terminology of mathematics in their lines.
Perhaps due to aesthetic distance (featured in The Art of Mathematics by Jerry King), non-math poets like Christina M. Rau are able to be more playful in their uses of mathematical vocabulary than mathematicians dare to be. Enjoy below several stanzas from Rau's collection, Liberating the Astronauts -- which also includes titles like "Chasing Zero" and "Kepler's Laws" -- soon to be released by Aqueduct Press.
from: Overnight Rain by Christina M. Rau
Rain over Night
Equals
X over Autumn
Perhaps due to aesthetic distance (featured in The Art of Mathematics by Jerry King), non-math poets like Christina M. Rau are able to be more playful in their uses of mathematical vocabulary than mathematicians dare to be. Enjoy below several stanzas from Rau's collection, Liberating the Astronauts -- which also includes titles like "Chasing Zero" and "Kepler's Laws" -- soon to be released by Aqueduct Press.
from: Overnight Rain by Christina M. Rau
Rain over Night
Equals
X over Autumn
Monday, January 23, 2017
All Mathematicians are Equal!
Last Saturday's Women's March in Washington was one the great events of my lifetime -- the feeling of community that bonded us participants was palpable. We chatted and hugged and celebrated our differences and our common ideals. Here is a photo of the sign that I carried and, beneath the sign, are links to poems about women in mathematics who struggled to be considered equal.
This link leads to "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde. This link leads to a few words of mine, "Square Attitudes." A posting on girls and mathematics includes samples from Sharon Olds and Kyoko Mori and is available here.
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This is the sign I carried at the Women's March on January 21, 2017. |
This link leads to "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde. This link leads to a few words of mine, "Square Attitudes." A posting on girls and mathematics includes samples from Sharon Olds and Kyoko Mori and is available here.
Labels:
Audre Lorde,
equal,
Kyoko Mori,
Sharon Olds,
Women's March
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Dickens, from A Tale of Two Cities
Today I am facing tomorrow and the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. With many uncertainties and little mathematics in mind (see, however, math-poem link below), I have looked back to the opening words of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Published in 1859, these words echo some of my thoughts today.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us . . .
Here is a link to a poem posted in 2014 that also features the words of Dickens. Written by Halifax mathematician and poet Robert Dawson, that 2014 poem was formed by applying a mathematical procedure to a passage from Dickens' Great Expectations.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us . . .
Here is a link to a poem posted in 2014 that also features the words of Dickens. Written by Halifax mathematician and poet Robert Dawson, that 2014 poem was formed by applying a mathematical procedure to a passage from Dickens' Great Expectations.
Labels:
Charles Dickens,
Donald Trump,
Robert Dawson
Monday, January 16, 2017
Celebrate Martin Luther King
Today is our public celebration of the January 15 birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr (1929-1968) who was both preacher and poet in the "I have a dream" speech he delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.
Dr King's speech began with:
Five score years ago, a great American,
in whose symbolic shadow we stand
signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves who had been
seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Dr King's speech began with:
Five score years ago, a great American,
in whose symbolic shadow we stand
signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves who had been
seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Poems starring mathematicians
One of the challenges posed by a multi-year blog is locating interesting old posts. One of my frequent early topics was "poems starring mathematicians" and I offer links to several of these from 2011 below:
December 8 "Monsieur Probability" by Brian McCabe
November 13 My abecedarian poems, "I Know a Mathematician" and "Mathematician"
July 5 "Fixed Points" by Susan Case -- about mathematicians in Poland during WWII
July 2 "To Myself" by Abba Kovner
January 30 "Mr Glusenkamp," a sonnet to a geometry teacher by Ronald Wallace
January 28 "Mathematician" by Sherman K Stein
And, here is a link, via PoemHunter.com to "The Mathematician in Love," a poem by William John Macquorn Rankine, a poem that appears also in the multi-variable anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters, 2008), edited by Sarah Glaz and me. Here is the first (of 8) stanza of Rankine's entertaining poem:
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.
December 8 "Monsieur Probability" by Brian McCabe
November 13 My abecedarian poems, "I Know a Mathematician" and "Mathematician"
July 5 "Fixed Points" by Susan Case -- about mathematicians in Poland during WWII
July 2 "To Myself" by Abba Kovner
January 30 "Mr Glusenkamp," a sonnet to a geometry teacher by Ronald Wallace
January 28 "Mathematician" by Sherman K Stein
And, here is a link, via PoemHunter.com to "The Mathematician in Love," a poem by William John Macquorn Rankine, a poem that appears also in the multi-variable anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters, 2008), edited by Sarah Glaz and me. Here is the first (of 8) stanza of Rankine's entertaining poem:
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.
Friday, January 6, 2017
2017 is prime!
For her December 31 posting in Roots of Unity (Scientific American blog) mathematician Evelyn Lamb wrote about favorite primes -- and starring in her list is our new year-number, 2017.
My own relationship with primes also is admiring-- here is an excerpt from my poem, "Fool's Gold," (found in full here) that suggests a prime as a suitable birthday gift:
Select and give a number. I like large primes—
they check my tendency to subdivide
myself among the dreams that tease
like iron pyrites in declining light.
"Fool's Gold" appears in my chapbook, My Dance is Mathematics (Paper Kite Press, 2006); the collection is now out-of-print but is available online here.
Several poems about primes have been included in earlier postings in this blog. For example, here is a link to a 2013 posting of "The Sieve of Erastosthenes" by Robin Chapman. And, for further exploration, here is a link to the results of searching the six years of postings using the term "prime."
My own relationship with primes also is admiring-- here is an excerpt from my poem, "Fool's Gold," (found in full here) that suggests a prime as a suitable birthday gift:
Select and give a number. I like large primes—
they check my tendency to subdivide
myself among the dreams that tease
like iron pyrites in declining light.
"Fool's Gold" appears in my chapbook, My Dance is Mathematics (Paper Kite Press, 2006); the collection is now out-of-print but is available online here.
Several poems about primes have been included in earlier postings in this blog. For example, here is a link to a 2013 posting of "The Sieve of Erastosthenes" by Robin Chapman. And, for further exploration, here is a link to the results of searching the six years of postings using the term "prime."
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
December 2016 (and prior) -- titles, dates of posts
Here are the titles and dates of previous blog postings,
moving backward from the present.
For mathy poems related to a particular mathy topic -- such as women in math or climate or triangle or circle or teacher or . . . -- click on a selected title below or enter the desired term in the SEARCH box in the right-hand column. For example, here is a link to a selection of poems found using the pair of search terms "women equal." For poems about calculus, follow this link. To find a list of useful search terms, scroll down the right-hand column.
Dec 31 Happy New Year! -- Resolve to REWARD WOMEN!
Dec 27 Celebrate Vera Rubin -- a WOMAN of science!
Dec 26 Post-Christmas reflections from W. H. Auden
Dec 19 Numbers for Christmas . . .
Dec 15 Remembering Thomas Schelling (1921-2016)
Dec 12 When one isn't enough ... words from a Cuban poet
Dec 31 Happy New Year! -- Resolve to REWARD WOMEN!
Dec 27 Celebrate Vera Rubin -- a WOMAN of science!
Dec 26 Post-Christmas reflections from W. H. Auden
Dec 19 Numbers for Christmas . . .
Dec 15 Remembering Thomas Schelling (1921-2016)
Dec 12 When one isn't enough ... words from a Cuban poet
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Happy New Year! -- Resolve to REWARD WOMEN!
My December 27 post celebrated the life of Vera Rubin (b 1928) who died on Christmas Day -- and a more recent Washington Post article by columnist Petula Dvorak has used the example of Vera Rubin to call further attention to ongoing discrimination against high-achieving women.
On a different note, my e-mail "poem-a-day" from poets.org is "Earthy Anecdotes" by Reading, Pennsylvania poet Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)-- follow this link to visit the poem (with its morsel of mathematics) and see the vivid image of Oklahoma bucks moving in "a swift, circular line".
On a different note, my e-mail "poem-a-day" from poets.org is "Earthy Anecdotes" by Reading, Pennsylvania poet Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)-- follow this link to visit the poem (with its morsel of mathematics) and see the vivid image of Oklahoma bucks moving in "a swift, circular line".
Happy New Year, 2017!
Labels:
Petula Dvorak,
Vera Rubin,
Wallace Stevens
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Celebrate Vera Rubin -- a WOMAN of science!
This morning's Washington Post carried an obituary of Vera Rubin (1928-2016), a pioneering astronomer who confirmed the existence of dark matter. Yesterday's NPR feature -- noting Rubin's death and celebrating her life -- contained several quotes from this outstanding scientist about women's roles. Two of these poetic statements I have shaped into syllable-square stanzas:
World wide, half
of all brains
are women's.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Post-Christmas reflections from W. H. Auden
A favorite writer whose works I enjoy again and again is English poet Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973). Here is a mathy excerpt from a very long Auden poem (around 1500 lines) entitled "FOR THE TIME BEING: A Christmas Oratorio," written during World War II and available in his Collected Poems.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
Another mathy Auden poem, "Numbers and Faces," is available here. And this link leads to more of his work.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
Another mathy Auden poem, "Numbers and Faces," is available here. And this link leads to more of his work.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Numbers for Christmas . . .
*
o n
t o p
g i v e
l i g h t
f r e e l y
f o r e v e r
a b u n d a n t
b r i l l i a n t
e v e r y w h e r e
o n
t o p
g i v e
l i g h t
f r e e l y
f o r e v e r
a b u n d a n t
b r i l l i a n t
e v e r y w h e r e
LOVE MATH!
Christmas is coming and I have looked back to earlier posts for holiday greetings -- a version of the growing snowball poem above was first posted in 2012 and here, from 2010, is a Christmas verse that celebrates pi:
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