A toast to Alan Turing

     Alan Turing (1912-1954) committed suicide at the age of 42. He was brilliant, arguably the best computer scientist of the twentieth century.  He is perhaps most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII; but he also made enormous significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing. And Alan Turing was gay. 

     More prose details will follow -- but first a poem for Turing by UK poet Matt Harvey : 

Ode to Alan Turing

In this week of announcements in the US about evolving views concerning human sexual preferences, it seems fit to offer a second poem (see also May 9) honoring British code-breaker and computer scientist, Alan Turing (1912-1954).  Here is "Ode to Alan Turing"  by Saskatchewan poet, Mari-Lou Rowley. 

Sunflower Swirls

     From Sharon Jones at Connell Co-op College in Manchester, UK, I have learned about National Poetry Day -- an event organised by Forward Arts Foundation and held on the first Thursday of October -- an annual celebration encouraging everyone to make, experience, and share poetry with family and friends.  Today, October 5, I celebrate the day by offering one of Sharon Jones' poems.

Turing's Sunflowers       by Sharon Jones

I am perplexed by mathematics.

The numbers and patterns make no sense to me.

I am transfixed by the yellow blaze of sunflowers.

Like you.

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.

Science Poetry from Spain

     Several weeks ago I got an email from science journalist Elena Soto, from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, director of a weekly science supplement for the newspaper El Mundo.  Soto told me of her poetry -- recently, Kernlose Winter , a collection containing a number of poems with a scientific theme -- and her blog Establo de Pegaso that offers samplings of science-poetry fare.
     Soto's poem, "The equation of zebra stripes" -- offered below -- is about morphogenesis (the structural changes that occur as an organism develops).  From Kernlose Winter and found also in Soto's blog, the poem is dedicated to codebreaker Alan Turing.  I offer first Soto's English translation and, following that, her original Spanish version.  Thank you, Elena, for sharing this and the links to more of your work.

The equation of zebra stripes     by Elena Soto
                          for Alan Mathison Turing
Sadness,
singular as zebra stripes,
wrinkle borders on maps.
Enchants the pupil,
molds her to the smooth curve of the dunes.
Drag until the fur
the winding path of deltas
the coastline.

2012 posts -- titles and links

Scroll down to find titles and dates of posts in 2012 -- and, at the bottom, links to posts all the way back through 2011 to March 2010 when this blog was begun.   This link leads to a PDF file that lists searchable topics and names of poets and mathematicians presented herein.

Dec 30  A chance encounter
Dec 28  Explorers
Dec 25  Support STREET SENSE
Dec 24  Star, shine bright!
Dec 21  Skating (with math) on Christmas 

Math fun with song lyrics

Song-writer Bill Calhoun is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg University (where I also hung out for many years). He belongs, along with colleagues Erik Wynters and Kevin Ferland, to a band called "The Derivatives."  And Bill has granted permission for me to include several of his math lyrics (parodies) here. (In this previous post, we consider the connection between song parodies and mathematical isomorphism.)  My first Calhoun selection deals with difficult mathematical questions concerning classification of infinite sets and decidability.  Following that, later lyrics consider proving theorems and finding derivatives.

Questions You Can’t Ever Decide*      by Bill Calhoun

(These lyrics match the tune of  "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by Lennon and McCartney.)

Picture yourself in  a world filled with numbers,
But the numbers are really just words in disguise.
Gödel says “How can you prove you’re consistent,
If you can’t tell that this is a lie?”    

Poetic Explorations of . . . Mathematicians

In the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (Volume 1, Issue 2), we find "Numen^Rology: A Poetic Exploration of the Lives and Work of Famous Mathematicians" by Saskatchewan poet, Mari-Lou Rowley. In addition to the following poem, "On Diophantus Arithmetica," Rowley's JHM collection includes "Ode to Alan Turing" and "On Euclid’s Book VII – Elementary Number Theory: Proposition 8." Rowley's lines below wonderfully describe the emotional flow that comes with engaging in mathematics -- as mathematical terms are translated into the human terms of wanting and forthcoming, kneading, . . . and yielding.

Visit JHM for Mathy Poems

     Today I'd like to direct you to the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, an online open-access journal that features poetry in each issue.  The Table of Contents for the first issue of 2016 is now available here -- and I offer below a poem from Issue 1 of 2015.  (Before sharing the poem "Prisoner's Dilemma" by Raymond Greenwell I want also to mention that JHM is looking for investigative journalists and that today's "Poem of the Day" at Poets.org is "Evolution" by Linda Bierds and inspired by the work of Alan Turing.)
     I am particularly intrigued by Greenwell's poem because the Prisoner's Dilemma is a decision model close to my concerns about the environment. (More comments below.)

       Prisoner's Dilemma     by Raymond N. Greenwell

       Your best choice is my demise.
       My wise choice is your defeat.