Looking back to an old poem -- "Expectations"

      Years ago I wrote this poem -- recently I have rediscovered it and, once again, pondered the role of time in my life.  Here, from the 1980's is "Expectations" -- a poem that appears in my collection, Intersections (Kadet Press, 1993).

     Expectations     by JoAnne Growney

          Don't let mathematics
          teach you to expect two
          to be more than one.

          It's sad but true that two
          can get too near,
          can interfere,
          can reduce each other
          to less than one,
          to less than half.    

Einstein Defining Special Relativity

     Today I share a poem by poet A. Van Jordan that takes math-science terminology and mixes it into personal situations -- and offers varied ideas to consider.  Born in Ohio, Van Jordan became interested in poetry while studying for a masters degree at Howard University and attending readings in Washington, DC.  

Einstein Defining Special Relativity     by A. Van Jordan

INSERT SHOT: Einstein’s notebook 1905—DAY 1: a theory that is based on two postulates (a) that the speed of light in all inertial frames is constant, independent of the source or observer. As in, the speed of light emitted from the truth is the same as that of a lie coming from the lamp of a face aglow with trust, and (b) the laws of physics are not changed in all inertial systems, which leads to the equivalence of mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time; with increased velocity, space is compressed in the direction of the motion and time slows down. As when I look at Mileva, it’s as if I’ve been in a space ship traveling as close to the speed of light as possible, and when I return, years later, I’m younger than when I began the journey, but she’s grown older, less patient. Even a small amount of mass can be converted into enormous amounts of energy: I’ll whisper her name in her ear, and the blood flows like a mallet running across vibes. But another woman shoots me a flirting glance, and what was inseparable is now cleaved in two.

The poem above was found here at poets.org along with other samples of Van Jordan's work.  His poem "Quantum Lyrics" was included in this blog (at this link) back in February 2019.

Worried about Climate Change

     When working with students in poetry workshops I often ask them to write to satisfy a constraint -- perhaps a Fib or a square poem -- in order to help them focus their thoughts.  This morning -- in the middle of a heat wave -- I focused my thoughts squarely on my growing concerns about climate.

       Steamy weather.  I count
       the degrees.  I count on
       air conditioning.  But
       my cooling system adds
       to global warming.  What
       is the right thing to do?

 Here is a link to previous postings in this blog that offer climate concerns.

Amelia Earhart -- a brave and pioneering woman!

      Growing up on a farm in Western Pennsylvania, one of my heroes was Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) -- a brave and talented female who died too soon.  Fearlessly Earhart broke barriers for all women and my admiration for her led to the following poem (which is a tiny bit mathy -- since it contains several numbers).  The 125th anniversary of Earhart's birth occurs soon -- on July 24, 2022 -- and lots of years ago after reading about her life I wrote these lines to celebrate my appreciation for this remarkable woman.

Lost Star     by JoAnne Growney

Somewhere in Kansas,
seven years old,
belly slamming on ice --
a close call.

Set for collision
with a horse and cart,
that girl put down her head
and slid between the horse's legs.   

Poems with multiple choices of what to read . . .

      When you pick up something to read -- a newspaper article, instructions for a new appliance, or a poem, or whatever  -- in what order do you read it?  For many of us, reading is not a beginning-to-end process but a jumping around in which we survey the scope of what's to be read, look for internal highlights, focus on particular terms, etc.  A fascinating exploration of multiple ways of reading a particular poem is a treasure I have found in a blog that I visit often, Poetry and Mathematics by Marian Christie.

      Born in Zimbabwe and now living in the UK, mathy poet Marian Christie offers a delightful and informative blog that thoughtfully explores various ways in which the arts of mathematics and poetry are linked.  In this January, 2022 blog posting Christie examines what she calls a "multiple choice" poem -- that is a poem that offers multiple ways of reading what the page presents. The poem she considers is one written in 1597 by Henry Lok in honor of Elizabeth I; below I offer a diagram of that poem, copied from Christie's blog.

CoronaVirus Fibs

     The threats of the coronavirus seem less now, but are not gone.  And, as I go through files, I have found these Fibs -- expressing concerns from worried days.

Lots of previous blog postings with Fibs can be found at this link.

Poetry and the Fields Medal

     It has been exciting to learn that a woman -- Maryna Viazovska of Ukraine -- has won a Fields Medal (often called "the Nobel prize of mathematics"); Viazovska is one of four persons who have been recognized (announced on June 5) for her outstanding contributions to mathematics.  Fields medals were first awarded in 1936 and are awarded every four years to up to four mathematicians under the age of forty.  The only other female mathematician who has received this award was Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014.

One of my syllable-squares

     Also of much interest to me concerning this year's Fields Medal winners is that one of them, June Huh, was in high school interested in becoming a poet -- and dropped out of school to pursue that goal.  Later, however, in his university years, Huh began to see his future in mathematics.

Still Life with Mathematics

   The title of this blog post, "Still Life with Mathematics" is also the title of a mixed media artwork by Pacific Lutheran University math professor Jessica Sklar and displayed in Mathematical Art Galleries for the 2022 Joint Mathematics Meetings.  Included in the art (which Sklar describes as a tribute to her dissertation advisor and to mathematics) is Sklar's poem, "Disciple" -- first published here in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics in 2017 and offered below;  Sklar describes it as "a love poem for mathematics."

     Disciple     by Jessica K. Sklar

     And when they ask why I love you,
     I divulge: in your universe,
     normality is special, naturality
     is contrived, fields can be infinite
     and singularities are as commonplace
     as odd primes.    

Learning from Poetry -- "The Courtesy of the Blind"

      Can difficulty with understanding mathematics be compared with physical blindness -- a difficulty that is biological rather than chosen?  This is a question that has come to my mind as a reaction to Wislawa Szymborska's poem (offered below) "The Courtesy of the Blind."  This Szymborska poem is part of a wonderful online collections of poetry, Poetry 180, a poem for each day of the 180-day public school year.  

Poem 119: The Courtesy of the Blind     by Wislawa Szymborska

Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012)
was the 1996 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature
and the author of over 20 volumes of poetry.

     The poet reads his lines to the blind.
     He hadn’t guessed that it would be so hard.
     His voice trembles.
     His hands shake.

     He senses that every sentence
     is put to the test of darkness.
     He must muddle through alone,
     without colors or lights.

Remembering Alan Turing

      A posting from Mathigon on Twitter reminded me that today is the birthday of pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing (1912-1954); a bio of Turing may be found here at Mathigon.  This link leads to several poems that celebrate Turing . . .

           Do machines think?

                    Do we?

More about Turing's life and career may be found here.

Mathy Poems on YouTube

      In a recent posting -- 6/08/2022 -- I tell of mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz and link to her website that has a collection of links to works by various mathy poets that have participated in BRIDGES math-arts conferences.  Glaz not only offers connections to poet-information, she also offers links to YouTube recordings of poems -- and recently, to supply her with that, I worked with my granddaughter, Serena Growney, who has just finished her freshman year at high school and knows a lot more about using YouTube than I do.  Here's a link to our Growney-Growney YouTube collaboration.  (I had intended for Serena to focus on the book cover and not to catch my elbow, etc, in the background -- but perhaps all of that makes it more interesting.)  For viewers who like to see the text of a poem as well as to hear it, here is a link to a blog posting of "Things to Count On" -- and below I offer the text of the poem (a very new one), "A Tragic Mathematical Romance."

A Tragic Mathematical Romance        by JoAnne Growney

     Abscissa, my darling, what is the
     basis for your discontent?  When I
     calculate the
     distance between us, I
     even have trouble seeing it as
     finite – its growth has a steep
     graph, climbing out of my

Word-Play with Mathematics -- On-Stage

      One of the rewards from time spent with mathematics or from time spent with poetry is the array of multiple meanings that we find . . . usually not all-at-once but accumulating.  A master of word-play with mathematical terms and ideas is Mathematics Professor Colin Adams of Williams College.  Each time I attend the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings I look on the schedule for Mathematically Bent Theater -- with a presentation by Adams and the Mobiusbandaid Players. Here is a link to an interview with Adams; and here on YouTube are videos of some of the mathy presentations; EXPLORE and ENJOY!

To add a bit of poetry to this post, I offer below a photo of a visual poem by scientist and writer Bern Porter, found in the anthology Against Infinity.

"Formula" -- by Bern Porter

Against Infinity is an anthology of mathy poems edited by Ernest Robson and Jet Wimp and published by Primary Press in 1979 -- now out of print but available at used-book websites.  Here is a link to other selections from Against Infinity in earlier postings in this blog.

The Windmill Proof

      From Alice Major, Canadian poet and first Poet Laureate of the city of Edmonton, Alberta, I learned of Welsh computer science professor emeritus Stephen Payne's new poetry collection, The Windmill Proof.   Here is a sample poem by Payne which appears on the book's back cover. 

Learn more here about Stephen Payne; The Windmill Proof was published by HappenStance Press -- and is available for purchase at this link.  Here is a link to a review by Mat Riches and this link leads to a review by Adele Ward;  both reviews contains samples of mathy poems.

Many, many mathy poems -- THANK YOU, Sarah Glaz

      Sarah Glaz, mathematics professor emerita at the University of Connecticut, is also a poet.  AND, not only a poet but a coordinator of math-poetry activities for the annual BRIDGES Math-Arts conference.  This year's conference will be held in Finland, August 1-5, 2022.  This link leads to Glaz' announcement of the poetry program at BRIDGES 2022 -- and includes bios and sample poems by poets who plan to attend the conference AND also includes samples of work from some of us poets who have been part of BRIDGES in the past but will be unable to attend this year.  Below are the opening lines from a poem by Glaz that is inspired by the mathematical field of Ring Theory.

The entire poem is available via Glaz's profile at this link.

Work by Sarah Glaz has been featured in a variety of previous posts in this blog.  Here is a link.

The Mobius Strip -- in a LIMERICK

     Mathematics offers brief, condensed language for many big ideas.  Even for small problems -- such as the word problems of a beginning algebra class -- translation of the words into a mathematical equation offers the chance to express the problem precisely and to solve it using established procedures.    

     And brief mathematical forms also are popular in poetry -- the six-line Fib and the five-line rhyming stanza called a limerick both have wide appeal.  And, because of the brevity, the language must be concise.  At this webpage, maintained by Joachim Verhagen, are lots and lots of mathy limericks.  Here is a sample:

          The Moebius strip is a pain,
          When you cut it again and again,
               But if you should wedge
              A large disk round the edge
          Then you just get a PROjective plane.

This link leads to an interesting article about a Mobius strip made of light (see also the photo below); this link leads to a Wikipedia article about a real projective plane.  And more of Verhagen's Mobius strip limericks may be found here.  

A Mobius strip from this NOVA article

This link leads to a website with instruction for construction and playful activities with a Mobius strip.  To enjoy limericks found in earlier postings in this blog, follow this link.

All truths wait in all things . . .

       Tomorrow, May 31, is the 130th anniversary of the birth of American poet, Walt Whitman.  Below I include a few Whitman lines (with the mathy terms "logic" and "proves") that offer food for thought.

The rest of this poem and lots more by Whitman are found here at poets.org.

 Whitman's complete Song of Myself (52 poems) is available at this link.

A SEARCH using Whitman will lead to more of his work in in this blog.

Mathematics might be dangerous!

       Censorship of Math Texts: A Syllable-Square with Questions
    
       Florida educators have banned
       Lots of mathematics texts because
       The books’ problems-to-solve include some
       REAL problems – bias and racism!
       Are the banners blind to their bias?
       Do they fear exposure and critique?
       Do they worry that knowing the need
       for drastic changes may open doors
       to fair, equal treatment of us all?

Here is a link to a news article about the Florida censorship -- written by Moriah Balingit, from 5/9/2022 in the The Washington Post.

Crisscrossing Infinity

     Poet and painter and literary theorist Paul Hartal was born in Hungary, with higher-education experiences in Israel and the U.S. -- and is now a long-term Canadian.  Recently Hartal contacted me to share a couple of his poems that involved mathematical topics -- and I offer one of these below, "Crisscrossing Infinity." Hartal's poem refers to a war memorial constructed using the pattern that first appeared in the sculpture "Endless Column" by Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) and is on display at New York's MA, Museum of Modern Art.

       Crisscrossing Infinity       by Paul Hartal

       In the city of Targu Jiu, Romania,
       an abstract sculpture rises
       30 meters high.
       It is made of 15 zinc and cast iron
       rhomboidal modules
       (plus a half unit).

Math-Poetry -- when distinct worlds collide . . .

     Carol Dorf has been a long-time leader in math poetry projects.  A now-retired secondary school math teacher from California, Carol is the poetry editor of  the online journal Talking Writing -- an online journal that has included a variety of mathy poems.   Recently, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, Carol gave a presentation entitled "Poetry of Mathematical Definitions" -- the abstract for this talk begins with this provocative sentence:

Mathematical poetry begins when worlds we consider distinct collide.

Carol's poetry-editorship for Talking Writing has led to many math-related poems being published therein.  Here is a link to those poems and a bit of other math-related content;  the following list includes names of writers whose work has been included there:  Robin Chapman,    Marion Deutsche Cohen,    Allison Hedge Coke,    Mary Cresswell,    Catherine Daly,    Carol Dorf,    Iris Jamahl Dunkle,    Sarah Glaz,    JoAnne Growney,    Athena Kildegaard,    Larry Lesser,      Elizabeth Langosy , Marco Maisto,    Alice Major,    Katie Manning,    Daniel May,    David Morimoto,    Giavanna Munafo,    Karen Ohlson,    Eveline Pye,    Stephanie Strickland,    Amy Uyematsu,    Sue Brannan Walker,    and Jean Wolff.  Some of the poets have been featured more than once and to find all work by a particular author, SEARCH is recommended.

And here, from Talking Writing,  is one of Carol Dorf's fascinating poems:

       Lost Information     by Carol Dorf

       Visualize groups: there’s the babysitting co-op,
       with slips of scrip the children color during
       quarterly potlucks; and more than enough churches
       each with study evenings, and fundraising committees;    

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2022

      Founded by Reza Sarhangi (1952-2016) in 1998, the BRIDGES organization has had annual conferences and is an ongoing supporter of links between mathematics and the various arts.  This year's conference is scheduled for August 1-5, 2022 at Aalto University in Helsinki and Espoo, Finland.

Bridges Conference Information is available at this link.

Browsing and searching on the BRIDGES website can lead to a huge variety of math-arts connections -- including invited and contributed paper presentations, an exhibition of mathematical art, workshops, films, a poetry reading, music and theater -- including both descriptive and performance events.  Here is a link to a list of links to lots of exhibitions.   And this link leads to the results of a search in the Archive of BRIDGES papers that include the term "Poetry" in the title.

Adding to what the BRIDGES site includes is this rich source of math-poetry material at the University of Connecticut website of mathmatician-poet Sarah Glaz -- an active organizer of poetry at BRIDGES conferences.

               Poetry and
               mathematics
               build BRIDGES to
               understanding.  

Poem of the Census Enumerator

          When I look at
          the person I
          meet on the street,
          what do I see?

One of the powerful and relevant poems that has come into my view recently is "Counting" by Margarita Engle.  Engle is the author of many children's books and, from June 2017 to June 2019, she served as the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate.  I offer this poem below -- and invite you to ponder the discrimination-issues it raises and the COMPLEXITY of counting -- and then to follow the links to explore more of Engle's work:

       Counting      by Margarita Engle  

                    Harry Franck, from the United States of America - Census Enumerator

       I came to Panama planning to dig
       the Eighth Wonder of the World,
       but I was told that white men
       should never be seen working
       with shovels, so I took a police job,
       and now I've been transferred
       to the census.

       I roam the jungle, counting laborers
       who live in shanties and those who live
       on the run, fugitives who are too angry
       to keep working for silver in a system
       where they know that others
       earn gold.

Inspirational/Poetic Quotes about Mathematics

     The poetic quotes below sample what is found in an article by Natasha Irshad, "Inspirational quotes about the importance of Mathematics" -- found in ACADEMIA, an educational magazine from Pakistan.

     Mathematics is
     a place where you can
     do things which you can't
     do in the real world.
           -- Marcus du Sautoy

          Pure mathematics
          is the poetry of
          logical ideas.
                -- Albert Einstein

               Sometimes the questions
               are complicated,
               and the answers
               are simple.
                     -- Dr. Seuss

 

Build a Poem using a Fano Plane

     Many of the mathematical poetic forms introduced in this blog are structures that can be used to build a poet's fragmented thoughts into complete and poetic form.  The Fib, for example, gives a syllable structure to help a writer shape an idea. Syllable-squares are another simple structure and -- familiar also but much more complex -- the fourteen-line Sonnet in iambic pentameter.

     Math Professor Dan May of South Dakota often works with an interesting and more complex structure called the Fano Plane -- a finite projective plane of order 2 -- and composed of 7 vertices with 7 connecting lines, each joining three vertices: 

"A Mother's Math is Never Done"

     In just a few days (on May 8) we will celebrate Mother's Day 2022 in the US.  And I am thinking back to the July 2018 issue the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics  -- a special issue with the theme Mathematics and Motherhood.   One of the poems presented in that issue is "A Mother's Math is Never Done,"  a sestina by JHM Editor, Gizem Karaali -- and I offer its initial stanza below, followed by a link to the complete poem.

A Mother's Math is Never Done    by Gizem Karaali

Beyond dark clouds is the blue sky.
The day will come to do your math,
Once you put away the clutter.
Someday again you know you'll fly.
Now's not the journey's end, just a detour on the path.
Only today, hold your breath, for you are a mother.     

 Go here for the rest of this sestina.  Enjoy especially the final stanza!!

The entire "Table of Contents" for Mathematics and Motherhood is available at this link.   

Poem-in-your-Pocket Day -- April 29, 2022

      The following stanza by  award-winning children's author,  Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, (1914-2000), has led to an annual celebration in US schools of "Poem-in-your-Pocket" Day:

          Keep a poem in your pocket 
          and a picture in your head     
          and you'll never feel lonely
          at night when you're in bed.  

     The poetry that is in my my pocket is the opening stanza of "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963).   As this previous posting indicates, Roethke's poem has not always been a favorite, but now -- as I stumble toward the later years of my life -- I cherish what it awakens in me and its first stanza (offered below) belongs in my pocket!

         I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
         I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
         I learn by going where I have to go.

  Roethke's entire poem, with comments, is found here in this 2018 blog posting. And this link leads to a response to "The Waking" that I wrote-- entitled "Running."

28 Lines for History's FIRST recorded author

     Earlier this month I attended (virtually) a mathematics conference and focused my attention on sessions that linked math and the arts.  One of these was a math-poetry presentation by Sarah Glaz which celebrated Enhuedanna (early Sumerian author -- 23rd century, BCE) "Enheduanna – Princess, Priestess, Poet and Mathematician" and included this wonderfully descriptive poem by Glaz.

Twenty-Eight Lines for the En-Priestess Enheduanna    by Sarah Glaz    

       In the beginning there is no beginning.
       Eternity’s dark fingers hold a lantern
       casting a glow
       over the city-state of Ur,
       where the Sumerian princess,
       Enheduanna,
       high priestess of the Moon God, Nanna,
       daughter of King Sargon,  
       stretches the cord
       measuring land and irrigation canals,

April 22 -- Observe Earth Day

     Along with the vicious Russian attacks in Ukraine, our world today is observing a much longer period of destruction to our planet.  This link leads to "EARTH DAY" poetry in earlier postings in this blog.  And here at this website are some Earth Day poems for students.

Choose with care--
Don't pollute.  
Don't waste. Earth's

resources
are waning.
Please! Help save!

 For a bit of amusement, 25 Earth Day puns are found here.

Censorship of math books -- Oh, my!!

                         A Syllable-Square for Math Texts                    

                              If a math text shares
                              truth that is (for some)
                              undesirable,
                              banning it is not
                              what ought to be done!

A recent story in the The Washington Post (written by Valerie Strauss and Lindsey Bever; headline and link given below) examines criticisms of math texts that offer contemporary issues for mathematical consideration.

Here's a link to the Post story that follows this headline.

Poetry at the Mathematics Conference

      Last weekend, April 6-9, was a virtual national jmm - Joint Mathematics Meetings -- and I attended a number of sessions that explored links between the focused languages of mathematics and poetry.  Presenters that I was privileged to hear included Carol Dorf, Sarah Glaz, Gizem Karaali, and Dan May.  Math guy Douglas Norton of Villanova University organized contributed-paper session on "Mathematics and the Arts" and also hosted a Friday-evening poetry reading -- an event in which much of the action was writing and sharing Fibs (6-line poems with syllable count being the first six Fibonacci numbers).  Here are several samples:

From Doug Norton:                                     From Dan May:

Me?                                                                        Pet
Write?                                                                    me
A Fib?                                                                     Or I
Not a fib.                                                                will bite you.
Put my heart in it.                                                  Nighttime is here, time
Let’s just see what comes bleeding out.                  to burn off all that hay I ate.

From David Reimann:                            From Gizem Karaali: 

Joint                                                                   one
Math                                                                    golde
Meetings                                                              dragon
Zoom with friends                                                metallic,
poetry alive                                                          majestic creature --
breathing words across many miles . . .               not sure I want to meet one now

 

War and Resistance -- in Eleven Three-line Stanzas

      Recently I searched work by Ukranian authors at the Poetry International website -- hoping to find poems with mentions of mathematics -- but I did not.  Eventually, though, praise of a poem by UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage led me to "Resistance" (published here in The Guardian) with uses a prime number (11) of stanzas, each with a prime number (3) of lines, to speak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its effects.  Here are the opening stanzas:

       Resistance       by Simon Armitage

          It’s war again: a family
             carries its family out of a pranged house
                under a burning thatch.

          The next scene smacks
             of archive newsreel: platforms and trains
                (never again, never again),

          toddlers passed
             over heads and shoulders, lifetimes stowed
                in luggage racks.

          It’s war again: unmistakable smoke
             on the near horizon mistaken
                for thick fog. Fingers crossed.          . . .     

     for the rest of Resistance, follow this link.

     Ukrainian-born Ilya Kaminsky is a very fine poet now living in the US.  Here is a link to one of his poems that describes too many of us, "We Lived Happily During the War."

April Celebrates both Math and Poetry . . .

     April is Math-Stat Awareness Month and here at the American Mathematical Society website are lots of ideas for learning and enjoyment.  April also is National Poetry Month and, at this link, Poets.org suggests 30 fun ways to observe the occasion.

 Celebrate the ways
that focused language
leads us to new thoughts!

And . . . here are some poetry-with-math links to explore:    a Smithsonian Magazine article by Evelyn Lamb;  an article in Slate Magazine by Stephen Ornes;  a posting by Laura Laing on the Math for Grownups website;  from way back in 2009, an article by Shirley Dent in The Guardian. 

Enjoy all of these AND, when your time permits, browse or SEARCH this blog!

Winning Essays about Math Women

      The Association for Women in Mathematics each year sponsors an Essay Contest in which students (junior high, high school, and college) each interview a math-woman and write about it.  Contest winners for this year's contest have been announced and I invite you to go to this link -- to read well-written words about wonderful and inspiring women.

     One of the wonderful math-women in my life was Laura Church -- my teacher during my junior and senior years at Indiana Joint High School (in Indiana, PA) -- and here is a stanza that remembers her.

           Chalk in hand,
           she tosses her book,
           strides across the room,
           excited by trigonometry,
           excited that we,
           restless in our rows,
           caught some of it.
           Flamboyant, silver,
           fearless woman.

       This stanza is from "The Ones I Best Remember" -- the entire poem is found here.         More "girls and math" poems are at this link -- and the curious reader may browse or use this blog's SEARCH feature to find lots more!

A Poet with a Slide Rule

     In 1966 Life Magazine celebrated Danish scholar Piet Hein (1905-1966) in an article (found here, p. 55...) by Jim Hicks entitled "Piet Hein;  Denmark's Scientist-Poet."  The article begins with a story of Hein's proposal of a superellipse as a design for a city plaza and then goes on to share some of Hein's poetic creations -- short, witty poems that he called "grooks".

     This blog has posted grooks in the past (in May, 2010 and in August, 2017) and here are several more to enjoy.

Grooks by Piet Hein

     LAST THINGS FIRST

     Solutions to problems
          are easy to find:
     the problem's a great
          contribution.
     What's truly an art
          is to wring from your mind
     a problem to fit
          a solution.

Celebrate Amalie Emmy Noether

 On this date -- March 23, 1883 -- mathematician Emmy Noether was born:

       Emmy Noether's abstract axiomatic view
       changed the face of algebra.
       She helped us think in simple terms
       that flowered in their generality.  

The stanza above is from "My Dance is Mathematics" -- a poem of mine inspired by this bright and fearless mathematician.

Learn lots more about Noether at this link.

And, as we celebrate Noether, I urge more investigation and celebration of women in mathematics.  This link leads to a variety of sources -- and the blog SEARCH feature can be used for lots more.  For example, here are the results of a search for "math woman".

Happy World Poetry Day, 2022

 In the words of Albert Einstein (1879-1955),

"Pure mathematics is,
in its way,
the poetry of logical ideas."

IF/THEN #IfThenSheCan THE EXHIBIT

     One of the exciting current events here in the Washington, DC area is the #IfThenSheCan Exhibit  -- a monumental exhibit of 120 3-D printed statues celebrating contemporary women innovators in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)and features the most statues of real women ever assembled together.   One of the featured women is Minerva Cordero who "applies her expertise in finite Geometries to computer science and artificial intelligence, and works to increase representation of women in STEM.  

"The best gift to a young girl is the belief that she can do anything she sets her mind to do." "She will persevere! Minerva Cordero is a Puerto Rican mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research on Finite Geometries has applications to several fields, including computer science and artificial intelligence. She has traveled all over the United States and Europe sharing her research and passion for Mathematics.  (Go HERE for more about Cordero.)  

Celebrate Pi -- and Poe

     Recently I came across a link I had saved to an article from last June in the Washington Post -- an article that considers Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and the scope of his influence.  Poe's poem "Sonnet -- To Science" was posted in this blog at this link back in October, 2013 but today, as Pi-Day (3.14) approaches, I am thinking of his poem, "The Raven."  Mathematician Mike Keith has written a version of "The Raven" in Pilish, an arrangement of words whose lengths follow the digits of Pi (when the digit 0 occurs, a 10-letter-word is used);  the complete Pilish version is found at this link.   Here are its opening lines:

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716 . . . .

 My own attempts at Pilish are much more modest and today I quote from a posting in March, 2018:

     Hug a tree, I shout -- hungering to defend trees
                    and every creation . . .

     In San Francisco, the Exploratorium Museum -- which reports that it invented Pi Day to honor not only Pi but also to remember Albert Einstein's Birthday -- will celebrate the holiday with programs that feature John Sims, a mathematical artist (and also someone who has been previously noted in this blog).

International Day of the Woman -- 03-08-2022

 Celebrate Math-Women with Poems

Throughout the history of mathematics, women have often been excluded or ignored.  This is changing.  I offer below some links to poems that herald math-women -- for you to enjoy and to share as we celebrate tomorrow  --  "International Day of the Woman." 

Celebrate Philippa Fawcett.          Celebrate Sophie Germain.

Celebrate Grace Murray Hopper.       Celebrate Katherine Johnson.

Celebrate Sophia Kovalevsky.          Celebrate Ada Lovelace.  

Celebrate Florence Nightingale.          Celebrate Emmy Noether.

And, as your time permits, browse this blog -- or SEARCH -- to find more . . .

Poetry of ideas -- an anagram, a palindrome

      Minnestoa math teacher Ben Orlin's website Math with Bad Drawings is a fun place to visit and Orlin often posts on Twitter -- browsing there recently I found this posting: 

Another frequent Twitter poster is UK-based Anthony Etherin -- a poet who likes to discover where he is led by following constraints; here's a sample:

Here are links to previous postings in this blog that cite Ben Orlin and Anthony Etherin.

World Book Day, celebrate Bright lady . . .

      Tomorrow, March 3, is WORLD BOOK DAY -- and I use the occasion to pull off the shelf one of my favorites, The Mathematical Magpie; stories, essays, rhymes, anecdotes, epigrams -- diversions (rational or irrational) from the infinite domain of MATHEMATICS, published in 1962 (Simon & Schuster, NY) by Clifton Fadiman (1904-1999).

    Here are two limericks offered by Fadiman -- and written by Manitoba professor A. H. Reginald Butler (1874-1944):        

     There was a young lady named Bright,
     Who traveled much faster than light.
          She started one day
          In the relative way
     And returned on the previous night.

     To her friends said the Bright one in chatter,
     "I have learned something new about matter:
               As my speed was so great
               Much increased was my weight,
     Yet I failed to become any fatter."

This link leads to previous postings in this blog that feature Fadiman.

A Picture is worth 1000 words . . .

     Tomorrow, March 1, we begin Women's History Month.  Join in celebration of math people with the Mathematician Poster Project  -- a poster series featuring modern mathematical role models, created by a group of math graduate students and alumni. All files are freely downloadable below, for sharing either online or in print.  The project is new and growing -- in the first six available posters, math-women featured therein include Pamela Harris, Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017), and Julia Robinson (1919-1985).

     Each of the posters contains a few words of wisdom that are, in their way, poetic. Here are words from Pamela Harris:          Mathematical
                                                                    discovery brings me
                                                                    great joy, yet I am
                                                                    far more than the
                                                                    theorems I prove.  

These two links -- Mirzakhani and Robinson -- lead to other postings in this blog that have included these math-women.

Black boys at the blackboard doing math . . .

     Last Wednesday evening the WordWorks-sponsored poetry reading, "Poets vs the Pandemic," brought back to my attention Pennsylvania poet Le Hinton who read from his recent collection, Sing Silence, and also some newer work.  Here is Hinton's very special poem about kids learning math.

     Uses of Cotton (Eraser)      by Le Hinton
 
      When my brother tells the story,
      he forgets to mention the sock, black
      and worn. Mom darned it in three places;
      Dad used it as an eraser.
 
      I never leave out the part
      about his teaching
      us numbers. When to add.
      How to subtract.
 
      He set up a blackboard in the back-
      yard and wrote problems on it. Even invited
      the neighborhood kids. We earned a piece
      of candy for each one we got right.      

Reduce stress in math class -- write a poem

       Recently I have come across a website for the New England Literary Resources Center -- and one of the suggestions offered for managing stress in a math class is by writing poems; here is a link to a sample of stressed students' poems. 

     My favorite suggestion for inexperienced poets who take pen in hand is to choose a syllable-count structure to follow -- such as a syllable-square or a snowball or a Fib . . .. AND, from the website Pen and the Pad, here are some additional ideas to consider:   How to Write a Mathematical Poem (penandthepad.com)

And, as I worried, I wrote this Fib:

          Stop . . .
          Think . . .        
          Wonder
          What to say!
          I gather my thoughts
          and hope I can make a poem!

February -- National Haiku-writing Month

     Whether to satisfy particular constraints when writing a poem is an idea that is very important to poets.  Some think that following strict constraints (such as building 14 lines of iambic pentameter to achieve a sonnet) is a process that leads the mind to discovery of new ideas.  Others think that constraints unnecessarily inhibit poetic ideas.

      Over time, the single-stanza poem called "Haiku" has been held to a variety of different standards.  Often the Haiku was expected to have three lines and seventeen syllables -- in a 5-7-5 pattern.  But this year as we now (in February) celebrate National Haiku Writing Month, relaxation of the syllable constraint is encouraged -- and the challenge of writing one-Haiku-per-day also is encouraged. 

Here, using syllable-counts, is a "no-seven" Haiku (offered on the seventeenth)!

               one two three four five
               six eight nine ten eleven
               twelve, thirteen, fourteen

And this link leads to lots of more-imaginative Haiku in earlier blog-posts.

Celebrate with a MATHY Valentine

 Celebrate Valentine's Day with mathy verse!

Follow this link to see the variety of examples in previous posts.

Seven-line Fibs

 In a previous post (on 2/2/2222), I shared a link to dozens of Fibs;
today I offer a Fib variation -- this time with 7 lines.

     Daughter of a statistics professor, poet A. E. Stallings is no stranger to mathematics.  Here is a link to several dozen of her poems posted by the Poetry Foundation -- and this link leads to a posting of her poem "Sine Qua Non" in this blog.  Recently I discovered Stallings 2012 collection Olives (a sample is available here) and in it, "Four Fibs."   Deviating from the six-line poem that is often called a Fib, Stallings' poems have seven lines -- with syllable-counts of 1,1,2,3,5,8, and 13 syllables: here is a sample.

from   Four Fibs     by A. E. Stallings 

          1.       Did
                   Eve
                   believe
                   or grapple
                   over the apple?
                   Eavesdropping Adam heard her say
                  To the snake-oil salesman she was not born yesterday. 

Here in the archives of the Cortland Review (where "Four Fibs" first appeared) is more of Stallings' work, including the other three Fibs.

The Poetry of Science

     Poet and teacher Sam Illingworth does much to celebrate the links between poetry and the sciences.  He is the founder of Consilience, an online journal that links poetry and artwork with science.  And he has a blog, The Poetry of Science, in which each week he presents a poem based on a new science idea that he has recently learned.  Here are the opening lines of a poem posted in August, 2021:

from     Artificial Weather    by Sam Illingworth

          Buoyant skies linger overhead,
          bulging at the seams
          with surging intent;
          capricious threats
          that fall indiscriminately
          against the statistical fortitude  
          of our modelled routines.     . . . read more here . . .

Here is a link to earlier mentions of Illingworth's work in this blog.