Math and Metaphor

Humility

Archetypes, mysteries, simple clues
that only fingers and toes, sticks and stones
and flashes of inspiration require
for universes to be disclosed ...
symbols for functions and formulae
for proof; logic so easy for some —
why am I innumerate?

East is east and west is logic,
and it’s said never will they meet.
Yet in hieroglyphs and runes
and Mayan masks, carven calendars,
in the graceful limbs of Arabic,
those signs beyond the Word
beckon curiosity to span the voids.

Plus and minus, powers, infinity ...
zero, prime, sequences, fractals ...
Euclid to Escher, Foucault and Fibonacci,
Seuss to Einstein, abacus to gigabytes ...
the world and wars and philosophy
are in their hands, while I can only
grope for a touch of understanding.

Math and Metaphor: Using Poetry to Teach College Mathematics

Patrick Bahls
University of North Carolina, Asheville

Math is everywhere, and most people don’t even realize it. For the longest time
I found math boring and confusing — just a bunch of numbers and symbols
jumbled together, or word problems with juvenile purposes. (For example,
would I really care about the rate water leaks from a bucket?) When I realized
the concepts were actually relevant, and could be used to solve relevant problems, my feelings changed. Many of [my] poems definitely reflect my shift in
attitude, and my realization that mathematics can be incredibly interesting.
— Katherine, Fall 2007 Calculus I student

In the fall 2007 semester at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, I asked
the students in my two sections of Calculus I to complete an atypical mathematics assignment. Each student was prompted to write a poem (a few students would end up writing several) offering the reader insight into her or his experience with mathematics. I have since assigned the same exercise to students enrolled in my Fall 2008 Precalculus course, with more or less the same success.

Painting: The Persian Poet and Mathematician, Omar Khayyám,Wikkipedia

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