Comments on: Mathematical Poems

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:08:53 +0000

Alejandro, with regards your comment 26….I’d be honoured if someone did that to me!

In 27… the second one is just great!

-cvj

By: erc

erc — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:21:27 +0000

I believe you! – I had the same problem with the preview.

By: Alejandro

Alejandro — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:12:34 +0000

Strange. In the preview the last line of each poem appeared separated from the previous ones by an empty line. I swear it!

By: Alejandro

Alejandro — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:10:26 +0000

Searching for confirmation of the facts given above, I found this page with lots of interesting examples:

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/sfpo-14pt0.html

Among others I found this topological limerick:

A burleycue dancer, a pip
Named Virginia, could peel in a zip;
But she read science fiction
And died of constriction
Attempting a Mobius strip.

And this algebraic one:

A lady of 80 named Gertie
Had a boyfriend of 60 named Bertie.
She told him emphatically
That viewed mathematically
By modulo 50 she’s 30.

(sorry, for some reason I can’t make the last line of each poem appear without a line gap)

By: Alejandro

Alejandro — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:58:42 +0000

The unintended poem mentioned by Hal Kouns is by William Whewell, historian and philosopher of science from the 19th century who among other things coined the word “scientist”. I remember the story from one of Martin Gardner’s classic columns for Scientific American. It seems in an afterdinner speech a collegue of him quoted the lines reciting them as a poem and asked who had written them. Whewell did not recognize them, and when the speaker revealed the source, he was not at all amused.

By: erc

erc — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:45:43 +0000

I think the mnemonic is for the digits of \pi?

I still remember (I hope correctly ):

When a pendulum’s swinging quite free
It’s always a mystery to me
How one tick plus one tock
Of the grandfather clock
Is 2\pi root L over g

More GCSE physics than maths though, I’m afraid…

By: Clifford

Clifford — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:42:52 +0000

Oh, I see! Thanks!

-cvj

By: Zevatron

Zevatron — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:32:48 +0000

Five plus e plus four
does not equal five plus four
plus a bit more

Yes, not very good, I know. It was off the top of my head pre-coffee…

By: Mathematical Rhymes at Kyun

Mathematical Rhymes at Kyun — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 20:05:50 +0000

[...] Clifford at the Cosmic Variance busts some mathematical rhymes. [...]

By: Clifford

Clifford — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:56:39 +0000

Zevatron, I’m being slow… I’m not sure I get it…… but I’m maybe not draping the Haiku form onto it properly?

Hal: Which textbook, I wonder?

W. Kiernan, what’s the mnemonic for (dare I ask)…?

-cvj

By: Hal Kouns

Hal Kouns — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:47:09 +0000

I’ve heard of a physics textbook that contains the inadvertent blank verse: “There is no force, however great/can stretch a string, however fine/into a horizontal line/that is accurately straight”. When this was pointed out to the author, who considered himself something of a poet himself, he was so annoyed he changed the wording in the next edition.

By: W. Kiernan

W. Kiernan — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:04:00 +0000

Just a mnemonic:

Now I, even I, would celebrate
In rhymes unapt, the great
Immortal Syracusan, rivaled nevermore
Who in his wondrous lore
Passed on before
Left men his guidance
How to circles mensurate.

By: Zevatron

Zevatron — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:22:36 +0000

Perhaps it’s “haiku-ish” (and it sort of requires LaTeX), but anyway…

5 + e + 4 != 5 + 4 + \epsilon

By: Clifford

Clifford — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 17:55:54 +0000

These are all great folks! Keep ‘em coming, old an new. Now I’m hoping that the absence of actual mathematical ones like the ones on the main post is because you’re all busy composing them….computing away and assessing rhyme and meter. We’ll have a bunch of them coming soon?….

-cvj

By: Astronomy Grad Student

Astronomy Grad Student — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 17:40:14 +0000

This one is very old (first time I heard it I must have been in 9th grade or so — kinda surprised no one has mentioned it yet, actually):

There once was a young girl named Bright,
whose speed was much faster than light.
She set out one day,
in a relative way,
and returned on the previous night.

By: Dan Schmidt

Dan Schmidt — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 16:03:40 +0000

David Morin's physics limericks

By: Matt McIntosh

Matt McIntosh — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:21:29 +0000

Meditation on Statistical Method

Plato, despair!
We prove by norms
How numbers bear
Empiric forms,

How random wrong
Will average right
If time be long
And error slight;

But in our hearts
Hyperbole
Curves and departs
To infinity.

Error is boundless.
Nor hope nor doubt,
Though both be groundless,
Will average out.

– J.V. Cunningham

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:12:37 +0000

Chris, I have no idea why that is. My recommendation: Firefox.

By: cow_gone_mad

cow_gone_mad — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:59:02 +0000

Mathematische Poesie

Just pointing your post out as a reading advice to my readers … (in german).

By: Chris W.

Chris W. — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:41:19 +0000

Off-topic (blog administration): Is it possible to fully enable text selection on your pages? In IE 6 I can ‘Select All’ and copy to the clipboard, but I can’t select a portion of a post and copy it. (This is very unusual, by the way.)

[Feel free to delete after reading.]