The New Yorker offers a rich variety of poetry and in their print issue of 22 July 2019 they give a poem that I love: "Sentence" -- by Tadeusz Dabroswski (translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) plays with two meanings of the word "sentence" and also embodies the concept of recursion -- so important in mathematics. Below I offer the opening lines; at this link may be found the entire poem (both a print version and an audio recording).
Sentence by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
It’s as if you’d woken in a locked cell and found
in your pocket a slip of paper, and on it a single sentence
in a language you don’t know.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Monday, July 29, 2019
What is beauty? Is mathematics beautiful?
My thoughts have been turned to the beauty of mathematics by stumbling onto a very fine article, "Beauty Bare: The Sonnet Form, Geometry and Aesthetics," by Matthew Chiasson and Janine Rogers -- published in 2009 in the Journal of Literature and Science and available online here.
The article opens with this quote from A Mathematician's Apology (see p. 14) by G. H. Hardy: Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place
in the world for ugly mathematics.
The article opens with this quote from A Mathematician's Apology (see p. 14) by G. H. Hardy: Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place
in the world for ugly mathematics.
Today I'm puzzling over what "beauty" means . . .
Thursday, July 25, 2019
As in mathematics--a lot in a few words--in Haiku
Recently on a visit to the website Singapore Math I found dozens of "mathematical" Haiku -- and I offer several below. Still more Haiku may be found at "The Republic of Mathematics" (a blog curated by Gary E. Davis), including a link to Haiku by Daniel Mathews.
Haiku are three-line poems that often -- but not always -- conform to a 5-7-5 syllable count. With their brevity they often resemble mathematics in that they have condensed a large amount of meainng into a few words.
Haiku are three-line poems that often -- but not always -- conform to a 5-7-5 syllable count. With their brevity they often resemble mathematics in that they have condensed a large amount of meainng into a few words.
Labels:
Daniel Matthews,
Gary E. Davis,
haiku,
Singapore Math
Monday, July 22, 2019
Mathematicians are not just white dudes . . .
Recently I found the wonderfully informative website arbitrarily close: musings on math and teaching -- my first visit to the site was to this 2016 posting about "The Mathematician's Project" -- a project and posting that offers lots of resources and links to introduce us to female mathematicians, black mathematicians, and more . . .
The following lines are from a puzzle-poem by mathematician-poet Benjamin Banneker -- a non-white dude; the sample has been obtained from a website that celebrates Banneker -- a website compiled by Washington, DC high school teacher John Mahoney. These lines come from Puzzle 5:
The following lines are from a puzzle-poem by mathematician-poet Benjamin Banneker -- a non-white dude; the sample has been obtained from a website that celebrates Banneker -- a website compiled by Washington, DC high school teacher John Mahoney. These lines come from Puzzle 5:
A snip from a puzzle by Benjamin Banneker |
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Math-Poetry -- Linz, Austria -- 07/19/2019
On Friday, July 19, 2-4 PM at the 2019 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Linz, Austria will be a Reading of Mathematical Poetry that features these poets:
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
Susan Gerofsky
Emily Grosholz
Lisa Lajeunesse
Marco Lucchesi
Iggy McGovern
Mike Naylor and
Eveline Pye
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
Susan Gerofsky
Emily Grosholz
Lisa Lajeunesse
Marco Lucchesi
Iggy McGovern
Mike Naylor and
Eveline Pye
reading mathy selections from their work.
And here is a sample of the stanzas you will enjoy at the reading -- from "First Test" by Marco Lucchesi, translated from the Portuguese by Renato Rezende:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
An Ode to Mathematics
One of the math-poets that I have met through this blog is Foteck Ivota, a mathematics teacher in the Cameroon. In an email message, Ivota has offered this point of view:
I love poetry too so much and I believe poetry can be used as a means of making students love and develop interest in mathematics. As teachers of this beautiful subject we face a lot of challenges to make students perceive maths as easy and down to earth.
Ivota also has shared several poems with me; here is one of them:
An Ode to Mathematics by Foteck Ivota
Your merits, maths, many may miss
And in ignorance may dismiss
Marvelous Maths that is life,
Believing that all is strife.
Chorus:
Maths for you and Maths for me,
Maths, Maths and Maths for all,
Maths, Maths for everything.
I love poetry too so much and I believe poetry can be used as a means of making students love and develop interest in mathematics. As teachers of this beautiful subject we face a lot of challenges to make students perceive maths as easy and down to earth.
Ivota also has shared several poems with me; here is one of them:
An Ode to Mathematics by Foteck Ivota
Your merits, maths, many may miss
And in ignorance may dismiss
Marvelous Maths that is life,
Believing that all is strife.
Chorus:
Maths for you and Maths for me,
Maths, Maths and Maths for all,
Maths, Maths for everything.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Mother-daughter geometry -- in poetry . . .
Last week (July 9) was the birthday of my mother -- and, although her body lies in a grave, her spirit continues to dance (and to both inform and confuse me). Recently published in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (January 2019 issue) this poem by Jenny Patton -- a creative writing teacher at Ohio State University and a wellness coach -- has been provoking my memories.
Geometry of Night by Jenny Patton
In three-dimensional Euclidean space,
lines in a plane that do not meet are parallel.
My beautiful aunt loved to sleep, blogs
my insomniac cousin about my mother
who went to her parallel life every night.
Those studying Playfair’s axiom note the
constant distance between parallel lines.
Geometry of Night by Jenny Patton
In three-dimensional Euclidean space,
lines in a plane that do not meet are parallel.
My beautiful aunt loved to sleep, blogs
my insomniac cousin about my mother
who went to her parallel life every night.
Those studying Playfair’s axiom note the
constant distance between parallel lines.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Euler's Vision -- in Verse
Scheduled to be read at the Mathematical Association of Victoria's annual conference in December of this year is a poetical choral piece for eight voices entitled "Euler's Vision" -- composed by Tom Petsinis -- a Melbourne writer (poet, playwright, and novelist) and mathematician. Here are the opening lines:
From "Euler's Vision" by Tom Petsinis |
Monday, July 8, 2019
Visual Poetry -- Newton's Third Law
One of the long-term and talented producers and advocates of mathematical visual poetry is Kaz Maslanka; his long-term mathematical-poetry blog is found here. Maslanka is a featured participant in The Film and Video Poetry Society's 2019 program. On Saturday, August 3, in Pasadena, CA, Maslanka will offer a presentation entitled "Mathematics and Digital Art." In addition, work by Maslanka on display (July 11 - August 3) at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. Kaz has sent me this photo of one of his featured (backlit) images:
Newton's Third Law in Karmic Warfare
by Kazmier Maslanka
![]() |
Digital painting displayed as a Duratrans |
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Fighting the heat -- with limericks!
Brief poems with strict patterns -- like the FIB and the LIMERICK -- are often used to convey mathy messages. Recently this limerick caught my eye (found at madkane.com).
Heated Limerick by Madeleine Begun Kane
One-hundred degrees? I may swoon.
Yes, I’m singing a very hot tune.
And I’m down in the mouth
Cuz this isn’t the south,
But Bayside, New York — early June.
At her long-standing and encyclopedic website, madkane.com, Kane offers lots more limericks -- and instructions for writing a limerick -- and also math-humor.
A wonderful source of math-humor and limericks is Ben Orlin's site, "Math with Bad Drawings." Here is a sample:
To find limericks previously posted in this blog, use the SEARCH box in the right-hand column OR follow this link.
Heated Limerick by Madeleine Begun Kane
One-hundred degrees? I may swoon.
Yes, I’m singing a very hot tune.
And I’m down in the mouth
Cuz this isn’t the south,
But Bayside, New York — early June.
At her long-standing and encyclopedic website, madkane.com, Kane offers lots more limericks -- and instructions for writing a limerick -- and also math-humor.
A wonderful source of math-humor and limericks is Ben Orlin's site, "Math with Bad Drawings." Here is a sample:
A limerick for mathematicians -- by Ben Orlin |
This next clever limerick -- originally first posted in this blog back in March 2010, has been attributed to Leigh Mercer:
A clever computational limerick -- by Leigh Mercer |
To find limericks previously posted in this blog, use the SEARCH box in the right-hand column OR follow this link.
Labels:
Ben Orlin,
Leigh Mercer,
Madeleine Begun Kane
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Out of Nothing -- A Strange New Universe
Shashi Thutupalli is a scientist -- in Bangalore, India -- who enjoys poetry and often explores the connections between poetry and mathematics. He has shared with me several samples of his work and I offer below the opening page (of three) of Thutupalli's poem, "Out of Nothing I Have Created a Strange New Universe." (The full poem, together with artwork, is available in Visual Verse -- at this link.)
Page 1 of 3 -- the entire poem is found here at VisualVerse.org. |
Also in Visual Verse is Thutupalli's "Dimensional Reduction' -- at this link.
Monday, June 24, 2019
Counting to seventy . . .
I am exited by last week's news that Oklahoma poet-- and member of the Muskogee Nation -- Joy Harjo has been appointed Poet Laureate of the United States. Harjo came to poetry via music and she sees in poetry a way of making connections and building understanding.
Struggling through complexity to understanding is a similarity between poetry and mathematics. Beyond that basic connection, however, Harjo's poetry is not closely linked to mathematics. EXCEPT: One of her poems (found online at PoetryFoundation.org) follows a strict syllable count. In a birthday tribute to a friend who has turned seventy, Harjo has produced a seventy-line poem in which the syllable counts proceed as 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 69, 70. (In the terminology of OULIPO, Harjo has produced a growth-only snowball.) Here are the opening lines of Harjo's poem:
from Becoming Seventy by Joy Harjo
arrived
when the days
grew legs of night.
Struggling through complexity to understanding is a similarity between poetry and mathematics. Beyond that basic connection, however, Harjo's poetry is not closely linked to mathematics. EXCEPT: One of her poems (found online at PoetryFoundation.org) follows a strict syllable count. In a birthday tribute to a friend who has turned seventy, Harjo has produced a seventy-line poem in which the syllable counts proceed as 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 69, 70. (In the terminology of OULIPO, Harjo has produced a growth-only snowball.) Here are the opening lines of Harjo's poem:
from Becoming Seventy by Joy Harjo
Knoxville, December 27, 2016, for Marilyn Kallet’s 70th birthday.
This poem was constructed to carry any memory you want to hold close.
Wearrived
when the days
grew legs of night.
Friday, June 21, 2019
Connecting with BRIDGES . . .
Bridges Math-Arts Conferences have become an annual summer tradition and this year's conference is July 16-20 in Linz, Austria. One of the participants in this year's Mathematical Poetry Program is University of British Columbia Professor Susan Gerofsky -- and I offer her "Desert Poem" below. Gerofsky's poem was constructed using a permutation pattern called PH4 (from bell-ringing) and an explanation follows the poem.
Desert Poem by Susan Gerofsky
Wings over dry land
Over wings, land dry
Over land, wings dry
Land over dry wings
Land dry over wings
Dry land wings over
Dry wings land over
Wings dry over land --
Wings over dry land.
Desert Poem by Susan Gerofsky
Wings over dry land
Over wings, land dry
Over land, wings dry
Land over dry wings
Land dry over wings
Dry land wings over
Dry wings land over
Wings dry over land --
Wings over dry land.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Love, marriage, and number . . .
Australian poet Richard Scutter has online collection of his own poems (this link leads to a chronological listing) and of favorite poems (go to this link and scroll down) by himself and others. Here are samples:
Marriage Mathematics
each one bending
to a heavenly plus
couple greater value
1 + 1 = 3 + ...
... and serious if a series starts
but the minus of hell
when one leaves
2 – 1 = 0
Marriage Mathematics
each one bending
to a heavenly plus
couple greater value
1 + 1 = 3 + ...
... and serious if a series starts
but the minus of hell
when one leaves
2 – 1 = 0
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Solve a puzzle -- find a poem!
At Canada's Capilano University, Lisa Lajeunesse teaches in mathematics in the School of STEM -- and is an enthusiastic promoter of links between mathematics and the arts. At the 2018 Bridges Math-Arts Conference she presented this paper on "Poetry Puzzles"; a sample puzzle is offered below.
all the numbers are there --
you can then read the poem
from your solved square.
Place 2 or 4 or 1 or 3
in each cell that is free.
When you finish each number should show
once in each column and once in each row.
When you've filled in each cell --all the numbers are there --
you can then read the poem
from your solved square.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Sailboat Mathematics
Celebrated on June 2 at the Joaquin Miller Poetry Series Washington DC's Rock Creek Nature Center, poetry by winners of the Jacklyn Potter Young Poets Competition, sponsored by The Word Works, Inc. One of these winners, Julien Berman, is a student at Georgetown Day School and a prize winning writer and accomplished violinist AND a member of the GDS Math team.
Here is Julien's winning poem:
Sailboat Mathematics by Julien Berman
A stretched canvas tarp
Not ungainly in style, but again not cut in a perfect polygon.
A wooden beam or two
Slung upwards and out, at ninety degrees.
Here is Julien's winning poem:
Sailboat Mathematics by Julien Berman
A stretched canvas tarp
Not ungainly in style, but again not cut in a perfect polygon.
A wooden beam or two
Slung upwards and out, at ninety degrees.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Have fun with "The Pi Song"
Often we celebrate the number pi -- ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, an infinite non-repeating decimal that begins with 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 . . .. Pi is a bridge between day-to-day mathematics that nearly all of us know and mathematics that is complex and difficult.
My own celebration of Pi includes these earrings -- but I have friends and former colleagues in the Bloomsburg University Department of Mathematics and Digital Sciences that celebrate Pi in a far more entertaining way -- in song. Here is a link to the YouTube version of "The Pi Song" with lyrics by Bill Calhoun and Kevin Ferland and performed by "Professor Parody (Kevin Ferland). Performance credits are found here. And here is a link to some more details about the song.
Here is a link to a previous posting with more mathy song lyrics by Bill Calhoun.
My own celebration of Pi includes these earrings -- but I have friends and former colleagues in the Bloomsburg University Department of Mathematics and Digital Sciences that celebrate Pi in a far more entertaining way -- in song. Here is a link to the YouTube version of "The Pi Song" with lyrics by Bill Calhoun and Kevin Ferland and performed by "Professor Parody (Kevin Ferland). Performance credits are found here. And here is a link to some more details about the song.
Here is a link to a previous posting with more mathy song lyrics by Bill Calhoun.
Monday, June 3, 2019
Celebrating Walt Whitman . . .
Last Friday -- May 31, 2019 -- was the 200th anniversary of the birth of American poet, Walt Whitman and the website of the Academy of American Poets offers poems by Whitman and background information to enrich our celebration. Here, from his oft-revised-and-expanded Leaves of Grass (Signet Classics, 1960), is a poem -- "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" -- with mention of mathematics. (Much of Whitman's work is available online here at Project Gutenberg.)
WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Delicious Geometry. . .words from Bertrand Russell
Sometimes we find that words presented as prose are poetic . . . as these words of British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970):
At the age of eleven, I began Euclid,
with my brother as my tutor. This was one
of the great events of my life, as dazzling
as first love. I had not imagined
that there was anything so delicious in the world.
More thoughtful quotes from Russell may be found here.
At the age of eleven, I began Euclid,
with my brother as my tutor. This was one
of the great events of my life, as dazzling
as first love. I had not imagined
that there was anything so delicious in the world.
— Bertrand Russell Autobiography: 1872-1914, (Routledge, 2nd Ed. 2000, p. 30).
More thoughtful quotes from Russell may be found here.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
2019 Student Math-Poetry -- FREE Poster
MATH-POETRY POSTER!
A GREAT item for a classroom bulletin board!
Late in 2018 Maryland math students were invited to enter a math-poetry contest (go here and scroll down for contest rules) -- the winners were celebrated at the 2019 January Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore and also here in this blog. A poster of the winning poems is shown below AND is available by request from the American Mathematical Society, email: paoffice AT ams.org.
Labels:
AMS,
Brooke Johnston,
Kelin Torres-Rodas,
Tina Xia
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Seek . . . and Find
This blog has more than a thousand posts -- and many have been discovered as the days passed and are not organized by topic. To explore, simply scroll down and encounter a variety of math-poetic views. If you visit this post for March 18, 2019 you will find a list of titles and links to all of the previous posts. If you are seeking a post on a particular topic, perhaps you will want to use the SEARCH feature in the right column of the blog. For example, if you enter "math women" you get this list of postings. The SEARCH entry term "imaginary" leads to these posts. Enjoy!
Friday, May 17, 2019
Poetic roots -- square, cube, . . .
In the 2008 film, "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Kumar offers a poem, "Square Root of Three" -- a poem attributed to Dave Feinberg, and Feinberg has this to say about it:
I wrote it during a high school biology class. A couple guys from my high school went on to write the Harold and Kumar movies, and they modified my poem for their movie. Originally, the poem began "I'm sure that I will never see a poem as lovely as root three," and it ended "when multiplied we stand up tall but when divided we will fall." I don't remember what else changed for the movie.
In my email correspondence with Feinberg, he offered me a new poem to present here in my blog -- a sequel to the square root poem and a poem offered first here in his blog -- a poem about the CUBE root of three; enjoy:
The Cube Root Of Three by Dave Feinberg
I take the cake, you must agree,
for I'm a cube root of a three!
There must be three of me to make
a product you cannot mistake.
I wrote it during a high school biology class. A couple guys from my high school went on to write the Harold and Kumar movies, and they modified my poem for their movie. Originally, the poem began "I'm sure that I will never see a poem as lovely as root three," and it ended "when multiplied we stand up tall but when divided we will fall." I don't remember what else changed for the movie.
In my email correspondence with Feinberg, he offered me a new poem to present here in my blog -- a sequel to the square root poem and a poem offered first here in his blog -- a poem about the CUBE root of three; enjoy:
The Cube Root Of Three by Dave Feinberg
I take the cake, you must agree,
for I'm a cube root of a three!
There must be three of me to make
a product you cannot mistake.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
If 1718 is a poem title . . .
If 1718 is a poem title,
the poem should celebrate Marie Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799)
author of the first book about both differential and integral calculus.
This post celebrates not only Agnesi (who was born 301 years ago today) but also present-day mathematician and writer Evelyn Lamb who produces lively and informative articles about STEM topics and people. Go here to read Lamb's article about Agnesi for the Smithsonian Magazine on May 16, 2018 -- celebrating Agnesi's 300th birthday.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
I'm tired of being a zero vector . ..
there are more to figures than ever meets the eye
Inexhaustible GOOGLE has led me to a website "The Best Philippine Short Stories" which contains not only stories but also artwork and poems. Eileen Tupaz, now a central character in Quezon City's White Space Wellness Studio, has given me permission to include samples of her math poems first published by BPSS -- poems written in 2000 when she was a student at Ateneo de Manila University.
Poems by Eileen Tupaz
soulmateswe are all of us
nonsingular creatures
whose identities
must be affirmed
before our inverses
can be found
Monday, May 13, 2019
Dinner at a Math Conference . . .
A strong advocates of humanistic mathematics -- supporting links between mathematics and the arts -- is Greg Coxson, both a poetry fan and a Research Engineer in the Department Electrical and Computer Engineering at the US Naval Academy. Greg has been, over the years of this blog, a valuable contributor of information about mathy poems and poets. Recently Greg has turned his hand to some poetry of his own -- and he has sent me this:
Crawfish Dinner at a Computational Theory Conference
Offered by our host as a gift of local color,
They look up innocently from their pile,
Radiant in their trim carmine carapaces.
Next, there are the computational theorists
Many of them from a more formal continent
Some are my heroes I am seeing up-close now,
Not from photos at the end of reference sections.
Crawfish Dinner at a Computational Theory Conference
by Greg Coxson
In this drama, the crawfish come off the bestOffered by our host as a gift of local color,
They look up innocently from their pile,
Radiant in their trim carmine carapaces.
Next, there are the computational theorists
Many of them from a more formal continent
Some are my heroes I am seeing up-close now,
Not from photos at the end of reference sections.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
What is TIME?
Recently I have been reflecting on the capacity for multiple meanings -- a feature that strongly links mathematics and poetry; with this similarity in mind, I present a thought-provoking couplet, an epigram from one of my favorite poets, Rabindranath Tagore:
'I have created the worlds,' proclaims Time.
'And we have created you,' the clocks chime.
'I have created the worlds,' proclaims Time.
'And we have created you,' the clocks chime.
From Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology, eds. Krishna Dutta, Andrew Robinson (Picador, 1997)
Monday, May 6, 2019
Celebrating math teachers
This week (May 6-10) is
US Teacher Appreciation Week 2019
Celebrate your teachers with poems!
This link leads to lots of previously-posted poems about math teachers.
Here is a sample (remembering my high school math teacher, Laura Church):
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
PLAY with math words . . . find a poem
A few days ago -- playing with math words -- I found this.
Here's a link to SEARCH results for this blog's presentations of "visual" poetry
and this link leads to information about the
NATIONAL MATHEMATICS FESTIVAL
and this link leads to information about the
NATIONAL MATHEMATICS FESTIVAL
in Washington, DC this coming Saturday, May 4.
Monday, April 29, 2019
Al-gorithms . . . conform or suffer?
Thanks to poet/mathematician Scott Williams who alerted me to this work by "a good poet and friend" Stephen Lewandowski, a retired conservation worker and author of 14 books (for example, One Foot) with another on the way. Steve says this of his poem: "SPELL" exists because I fear the misuse of algorithms to standardize people . . ."
A SPELL AGAINST AL-GORITHMS by Stephen Lewandowski
Named for a man, Abu Ja-far Muhammed ibn Musa,
and the Persian city Khwarizma where he lived
in the year 800, pursuing calculations
arithmetical and al-gebraical.
Begins admirably as
“how to solve a class of problems” and
proceeds through disambiguation to specification by
massaging a mass of data.
If the data are people, then
the massage is called a “census.”
A SPELL AGAINST AL-GORITHMS by Stephen Lewandowski
Named for a man, Abu Ja-far Muhammed ibn Musa,
and the Persian city Khwarizma where he lived
in the year 800, pursuing calculations
arithmetical and al-gebraical.
Begins admirably as
“how to solve a class of problems” and
proceeds through disambiguation to specification by
massaging a mass of data.
If the data are people, then
the massage is called a “census.”
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Zero plus anything is . . .
Poet Jane Hirshfield is an award-winning poet, essayist and translator whose work and I admire and enjoy. In her collections I have found a thoughtful share of poems with links to mathematics -- and links to my previous postings of her work may be found here. The MATH theme collection at poets.org has led me to another of her poems and I offer its opening stanzas here:
Zero Plus Anything Is a World by Jane Hirshfield
Four less one is three.
Three less two is one.
One less three
is what, is who,
remains.
Zero Plus Anything Is a World by Jane Hirshfield
Four less one is three.
Three less two is one.
One less three
is what, is who,
remains.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Poems in support of Earth Day
These words come from an editorial by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post in September of 2018.
Public awareness
and pressure are
the best hope
for effective
climate
action.
Public awareness
and pressure are
the best hope
for effective
climate
action.
This link leads to postings -- and poems -- in this blog related to CLIMATE.
And here is a link to several previous EARTH DAY postings..
A fine source for lots more climate information is the Center for Mathematics and the Environment at the University of Exeter. Another is 350.org -- which offers 350 poems of 3.5 lines each at this link; these poems came as part of a call for climate action for October 24, 2009. Alas, it is ten years later and we have not answered the call.And here is a link to several previous EARTH DAY postings..
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Some of the Magic of THREE
The Universe in Verse -- an Earth-Day celebration of Science and Poetry
A NYC event on April 23 -- learn more here!
In her brain-pickings website, Maria Popova offers myriad links between science and poetry -- and one of the poems she has, to my delight, reminded me of is "Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). Here is the first stanza:
from Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
. . .
Millay goes on to speak of flat and wide, of spheres and Infinity . . .. a story related to the poems is available here and the entire poem is found here at PoetryFoundation.org.
Monday, April 15, 2019
If I had a million lives to live . . .
This posting features Carl Sandburg's "Humdrum," a poem that reflects on "million." (This poem and others by Sandburg may be found online at poets.org -- at this vast resource-site also is a collection of poems with math-themes.) For me, Sandburg was the poet who introduced the idea that lines can be poetic without having rhyme. (This link leads to several of my previous Sandburg-postings.)
Humdrum by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
If I had a million lives to live
and a million deaths to die
in a million humdrum worlds,
I’d like to change my name
and have a new house number to go by
Humdrum by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
If I had a million lives to live
and a million deaths to die
in a million humdrum worlds,
I’d like to change my name
and have a new house number to go by
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Poetry with NEGATIVE numbers
In October of 2018, I was reminded of the significant achievements of poet and playwright, Ntozake Shange (1948-2018) as I read her obituary in the Washington Post. Shange wrote with daring and with vivid imagery -- and often used numbers very effectively, as in this poem, "With No Immediate Cause." I present its opening lines; the complete poem may be found here at poemhunter.com.
With No Immediate Cause by Ntozake Shange
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped/every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
With No Immediate Cause by Ntozake Shange
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped/every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
Monday, April 8, 2019
A Theorem in Limerick Form
Going through a pile of saved clippings, I came across an article in the April 2014 issue of Math Horizons that involved humorous restating of mathematical theorems -- one of them, shown below, restated the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic in limerick form. Enjoy!
Fundamental Theorem of a Limerick
Any number you pick, I dare say,
When factored in any old way,
Results in some primes,
Together with times,
Unique up to order. Hooray!
Entitled "Bovino-Weierstrass and Other Fractured Theorems," this article by Matt Koetz, Heather A. Lewis, and Mark McKinzie is found online here.
Fundamental Theorem of a Limerick
Any number you pick, I dare say,
When factored in any old way,
Results in some primes,
Together with times,
Unique up to order. Hooray!
Entitled "Bovino-Weierstrass and Other Fractured Theorems," this article by Matt Koetz, Heather A. Lewis, and Mark McKinzie is found online here.
Labels:
Heather. A Lewis,
Mark McKinsie,
Matt Koetz
Thursday, April 4, 2019
The Kingdom of Mathematics
When I was a mathematics professor at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg University, one of the colleagues whom I much admired and enjoyed is Reza Noubary. This mathematician-statistician also writes poetry -- and I have been lucky to have him share it with me. Here, below, are four of his small poems, "Math Kingdom."
Math Kingdom by Reza Noubary
Mathematics has its own kingdom
The key to enter it is called wisdom
Some fear mathematics for its complexity
Others enjoy it for its truth and explicitly
For me it is the beauty, elegance and simplicity
For the world it is the usefulness and necessity
Math Kingdom by Reza Noubary
Mathematics has its own kingdom
The key to enter it is called wisdom
Some fear mathematics for its complexity
Others enjoy it for its truth and explicitly
For me it is the beauty, elegance and simplicity
For the world it is the usefulness and necessity
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
"Science Friday" welcomes National Poetry Month
Last week, NPR's program "Science Friday" anticipated National Poetry Month and offered a list of poems with links to science. One of these is "Algorhyme" by Radia Perlman --
a pioneer in computer science
and while she worked
her mind gave her a poem . . .
from Algorhyme by Radia Perlman
I think that I shall never see
A graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
Is loop-free connectivity.
. . .
Perlman's complete poem is available here. Another of the poetry suggestions made by Science Friday is "Planetarium" by Adrienne Rich -- a poem that honors astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) and posted here in this blog.
a pioneer in computer science
and while she worked
her mind gave her a poem . . .
from Algorhyme by Radia Perlman
I think that I shall never see
A graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
Is loop-free connectivity.
. . .
Perlman's complete poem is available here. Another of the poetry suggestions made by Science Friday is "Planetarium" by Adrienne Rich -- a poem that honors astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) and posted here in this blog.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Celebrate Karen Uhlenbeck, Abel Prize winner
Celebration is everywhere (including here in The New Yorker ) -- mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck has recently won the Abel prize for her revolutionary work: " . . . pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory and integrable systems, and for the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry, and mathematical physics."
Here (pulled from The New Yorker article also cited above) are some of Uhlenbeck's poetic words about women in mathematics:
It's really hard for me to describe
to people who are not somewhat near me in age
what it was like for women then ... and it was only
because of the women's movement and books like
Here (pulled from The New Yorker article also cited above) are some of Uhlenbeck's poetic words about women in mathematics:
It's really hard for me to describe
to people who are not somewhat near me in age
what it was like for women then ... and it was only
because of the women's movement and books like
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Poetry-Mathematics--at Poets House--March 28
Tomorrow evening, March 28, 7 PM at Poets House in NYC, Emily Grosholz, poet and philosopher of mathematics, will discuss her new book, Great Circles: The Transits of Mathematics and Poetry, (Springer, 2018). Her book thoughtfully links the way poets use mathematical entities and mathematicians use poetic “figures of thought.” To illustrate, here are the opening stanzas of Grozholz's poem "Holding Pattern" -- a villanelle that she offers in her consideration (Chapter 7) of periodicity and symmetry.
from Holding Pattern by Emily Rolfe Grosholz
We can't remember half of what we know.
They hug each other and then turn away.
One thinks in silence, never let me go.
The sky above the airport glints with snow
That melts beneath the laws it must obey.
We can't remember half of what we know.
. . .
For the complete poem, go to Chapter 7 pages 115-116 of Great Circles or to Grosholz's collection, The Stars of Earth (Word Galaxy, 2017).
From a Greek Nobelist . . .
Poet Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. At some time I purchased a copy of The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis (translated by Jeffrey Carson and Nicos Sarris, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) and recently, during a reorganization of my bookshelves, have picked it up again. His poetry is not easy for me to read but I have been drawn to explore the collection, Marie Nephele, which Carson's introduction tells us was more than fifteen years in the writing. It is "arranged in three sections of twice seven poems with an introductory and closing poem and two intermediary songs ... ." Half of the poems are in the voice of a youthful Maria and half in the voice of the poet, "the Antiphonist."
Throughout his verse, Elytis is not shy about using mathematical terminology. Some samples:
From "The Song of Maria Nepele":
SUPERSTITION BROUGHT TO A MATHEMATICAL CLARITY WOULD HELP US PERCEIVE THE DEEPER STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD.
Throughout his verse, Elytis is not shy about using mathematical terminology. Some samples:
From "The Song of Maria Nepele":
SUPERSTITION BROUGHT TO A MATHEMATICAL CLARITY WOULD HELP US PERCEIVE THE DEEPER STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Give HER your support
In school, many
gifted math girls.
Later, so few
famed math women!
Thank you to Math Horizons (edited by Dave Richeson) for recent publication of "Give HER Your Support" -- a collection of syllable-square stanzas (one of which is given above) that focus on math-women. Online access to the article is available here -- and this link leads to a PDF of the article that I have downloaded and made available from my website.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
How to Triumph Like a Girl -- Learn to Swagger!!!
A recent article in the Washington Post cited the discrimination faced by women in economics. In response, I can't resist offering Ada Limon's poem, "How to Triumph Like a Girl" -- its mathematical connections include a defiant spirit and two numbers. Let us begin to win!
I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! . . .
Read the rest here at Poets.org.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Looking back . . . titles, links to previous posts
For your browsing pleasure,here are titles and links to previous blog postings. Below are listed linked-titles of posts from 2018 and up-to now in 2019 and here is a link to a list of titles and links for posts prior to 2018.
- March 13 An Interview of/by a Mathy Poet
- March 11 Celebrate Pi-Day on 3.14
- March 6 Celebrate Math-Women with Poems!
- March 4 Math in 17 Syllables
- Solving for X, Searching for LIFE
- Stories of Black Mathematicians (event postponed)
- All Numbers are Interesting . . .
- George Washington, cherry tree, lifespan . . .
- Musical sounds of math words -- in a CENTO
- If 2017 was a poem title . . .
- Mathematics and Valentine's Day
- Speed flunking math . . . NO, NO!
- Quantum Lyrics -- Poems
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
An Interview of/by a Mathy Poet
University of Connecticut mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz has interviewed me on behalf of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts. The article Sarah wrote is now available online -- but the online version requires a costly subscription. I offer instead this link to a pdf file of her "Artist Interview: JoAnne Growney." The article gives some of my personal and mathematical history -- growing up on a farm, studying mathematics because of a scholarship, loving both poetry and math and eventually finding time to follow both interests and see their connections. And it includes some poems. I invite you to follow this link and browse a bit!
Thank you, Sarah!
Monday, March 11, 2019
Celebrate Pi-Day on 3.14
If you are in the Washington, DC area you are cordially invited to a poetry-math program at The Writer's Center on Thursday evening, March 14, at 7 PM-- come and enjoy exploring connections between POETRY and PI.
This link leads to earlier posts in this blog that celebrate PI.
. . . And, when you can find time . . .
Say a text, a smart statement, in Pilish!
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Celebrate Math-Women with Poems!
March is Women's History Month!
March 8 is International Women's Day!
March 8 is International Women's Day!
and here in this blog we celebrate math-women with poems!
Herein appear lots of poems featuring women in math and the SEARCH box in the right-column may help you find them. To find a list of useful search terms, scroll down the right-hand column. For example, here is a link to a selection of poems found using the pair of search terms "women equal." AND, here are links to several poems to get you started:
A poem by Brian McCabe about Sophie Germain;
a poem by Eavan Boland about Grace Murray Hopper;
a poem by Carol Dorf about Ada Lovelace;
a poem of mine about Sofia Kovalevsky;
a poem of mine about Emmy Noether.
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