Mathematical Poems

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Clifford at 9:18 pm, August 24th, 2005

In the comment stream of The Greatest Physics Textbook!, a couple of mathematics poems broke out (as they are wont to do). The two examples (limerick form) were so attractive to me that I thought I’d share them with you. Also I’d rather like to hear more. I’ll give you the two examples, and feel free to compose and add your own, or submit ones you’ve encountered elsewhere. They don’t have to be limerick form. Some other standard form would be great to see too.

Here they are:

Torbjorn Larsson told us about this poem (which was attributed to John Saxon):

((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0

Now isn’t that clever? No? Oh, I see….here’s a translation:

â€œA Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.â€

Then Astronomy Grad Student (who knew parents could be so cruel in choosing names?) submitted the following (I took the liberty of correcting the mathematics a touch):

\int_(1)^(3^(1/3)) z^2 dz cos(3pi/9) = ln e^(1/3)

which reads as:

â€œThe integral of z squared dz
from 1 to the cube root of 3
times the cosine
of 3 pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of eâ€

(Note: Readers outside the US, this works better if you allow yourself the agony of pronouncing the letter “z” as “zee”.)

More please!

[Update: Our second contributor (with the interesting name) said that they got the poem from this page. There, I learned that the first poem is apparently attributable to Leigh Mercer.]

-cvj

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30 Comments on “Mathematical Poems” rss feed

Astronomy Grad Student on Aug 24th, 2005 at 9:30 pm

I thought I had an error somewhere in the integral poem… Cube root of three! Cube! *muble mumble*

I once found a whole bunch of them while procrastin… uh, doing some serious online researching

This page has a bunch: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/mayhem.htm

And for the giggle factor — my parents actually gave me a rather benevolent name (*whisper* Emily).
Clifford on Aug 24th, 2005 at 9:36 pm

Don’t worry Emily. Your secret is safe here. Hardly anybody reads my posts, so nobody will see your real name.

-cvj
Clifford on Aug 24th, 2005 at 9:43 pm

And I won’t tell your advisor about the mathematical error.

-cvj
Astronomy Grad Student on Aug 24th, 2005 at 9:46 pm

*giggle* I think the error came about from trying to remember a limerick that I hadn’t read in quite a while… And I’m not making up an excuse or anything… Because grad students *never* do that
Adam on Aug 24th, 2005 at 10:04 pm

I’m going to sleep quickly, before the AD&D poems appear.
Astronomy Grad Student on Aug 24th, 2005 at 10:08 pm

By the way, another source of math/physics/chemistry/academia/etc poetry, jokes, puns and general procrastination (where I found many of the jokes I tell my high school friends to make them look at me weird) is this wonderful website: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/

And now the procrastination really stops. Must… do… research…
Alejandro on Aug 25th, 2005 at 3:59 am

This is a famous one, sent by Lewis Carroll as a contribution to a philosophical symposium:

Yet what mean all such gaieties to me
whose life is full of indices and surds?
X^2 + 7X + 53
= 11/3
Torbjorn Larsson on Aug 25th, 2005 at 5:04 am

I found the limerick and its attribution in a collection without references. Teaches me to always doublecheck facts! I too am not making an excuse - because graduated students also never do that.

But I am glad if I gave 1/2 the inspiration for Clifford’s post.
Adam on Aug 25th, 2005 at 7:31 am

On the plus side, these are better than that Updike poem about neutrinos. That is damning with faint praise, however.
Dick Thompson on Aug 25th, 2005 at 8:21 am

Here’s a famous one:

A question both deep and profound
Is whether a circle is round
In a paper by Erdos
Written in Kurdish
A counterexample is found.

It also helps you remember how to pronounce Erdos.
Chris W. on Aug 25th, 2005 at 9:41 am

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.]
Trackback from cow_gone_mad on Aug 25th, 2005 at 9:59 am

Mathematische Poesie

Just pointing your post out as a reading advice to my readers … (in german).
Sean on Aug 25th, 2005 at 10:12 am

Chris, I have no idea why that is. My recommendation: Firefox.
Matt McIntosh on Aug 25th, 2005 at 10:21 am

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
Dan Schmidt on Aug 25th, 2005 at 11:03 am

David Morin’s physics limericks
Astronomy Grad Student on Aug 25th, 2005 at 12:40 pm

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.
Clifford on Aug 25th, 2005 at 12:55 pm

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
Zevatron on Aug 25th, 2005 at 1:22 pm

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

5 + e + 4 != 5 + 4 + \epsilon
W. Kiernan on Aug 26th, 2005 at 6:04 am

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.
Hal Kouns on Aug 27th, 2005 at 12:47 pm

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.
Clifford on Aug 27th, 2005 at 12:56 pm

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
Pingback from Mathematical Rhymes at Kyun on Aug 27th, 2005 at 3:05 pm

[...] Clifford at the Cosmic Variance busts some mathematical rhymes. [...]
Zevatron on Aug 29th, 2005 at 6:32 pm

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…
Clifford on Aug 29th, 2005 at 7:42 pm

Oh, I see! Thanks!

-cvj
erc on Aug 30th, 2005 at 8:45 am

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…
Alejandro on Aug 30th, 2005 at 2:58 pm

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.
Alejandro on Aug 30th, 2005 at 3:10 pm

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)
Alejandro on Aug 30th, 2005 at 3:12 pm

Strange. In the preview the last line of each poem appeared separated from the previous ones by an empty line. I swear it!
erc on Aug 30th, 2005 at 3:21 pm

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

E
Clifford on Aug 30th, 2005 at 7:08 pm

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