NUMEROPHOBIA

‘Teaching Maths’ … Collage by Clive Butler – c.1984

NUMEROPHOBIA

When numbers leap up at me
I often feel scared;
They can be aggressive
Maker thinking impaired.

I try not to fluster
To think these things through,
But I can still end up muddled
Not having a clue.

In the shop I try hard
To keep check on my spend,
But I’m easily distracted
And I have to pretend
That I know what I’m doing,
Mind and brain won’t agree;
Are two for the price of one
Same as buy one get one free?

When I’m with my bank statement
Checking up what I’ve spent,
Deducting those refunds
Allowing for rent,
Assuming some interest,
Checking those bills,
It gives me a headache –
Cue for some pills.

Life should be much easier.
If only I’d been
An attentive student
I could have foreseen,
That time spent with maths
In school in my teens,
Might have paid off –
Unless it’s my genes!

Three score years and ten
I will not see again;
At least I know that
My bible’s my brain.
My life is a number
Too large to keep count
It’s approaching seven dozen –
I demand a recount.

A Pi-Ku for Pi-Day

Tomorrow, 14^th March, is Pi Day.  It has become an occasion for the annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi).  It is also the birthday of Albert Einstein in – actually in 1879.

Based on the Japanese POETIC FORM of the HAIKU, where the 3 lines have syllable counts of 5,7,5, a new poetic form has in recent years been designed of the PI-Ku.

In a Pi-Ku each line of the poem has, in sequence, the number of syllables in the never-ending number — pi   –  that mysterious mathematical relationship between a circle’s diameter and its circumference . . .

π  =  3.14159265 35897932384626433832795028841971693993751058 . . .

In its basic form the Pi-ku will normally have just 3 lines – of 3, 1, and 4 syllables. However, as a development of this, it is possible to extend the number of lines with syllables following the Pi sequence, stopping wherever it is wished. To continue for ever would be a somewhat tedious exercise!

With a pi-ku, therefore, the first line has three syllables, the second line one syllable, and the third line has four syllables. Although without formal punctuation, each line should end in a terminal caesura which helps to retain the sense of the poem’s content. There is no specification on the subject matter.

For those interested, a web search for ‘Pi Day’ and/or ‘Pi-ku’ will give more ideas and examples.

I give two 9-line (3.14159265) attempts of my own at this exercise below . . .

Consider
Think
Let us compose
Now
Some poetic lines
Ones which clearly convey their meaning
To all
Setting out the purpose
Of this exercise

---

 

Talk to me
Speak
In your own words
Now
I want to hear you
Spilling your everyday musings
To me
So that I may reflect
On what our love means

Maths Limerick

[  # 79 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

On a slightly different tack to my usual Monday poetic offering, here is a limerick which you may have come across before, but which I think is worth giving some thought to.  As far as I know, it has to be attributed to ‘Anonymous’, but I would welcome anyone who might be able to throw more light on who it was who devised this extremely clever verse.  It is as follows:

A dozen, a gross, and a score

Plus three times the square root of four

Divided by seven

Plus five times eleven

Is nine squared and not a bit more.

 

Put in terms of a regular mathematical equation, this would appear as follows:

 

A Poetic Formula

 (Poem No.51 of my favourite short poems) 

A dozen, a gross and a score

Plus 3 times the square root of 4

Divided by 7

Plus 5 times 11

Is  9 squared

And not a bit more.

This ingeniously composed equation and the accompanying verse is quoted in Gyles Brandreth’s 2015 book ‘Word Play’ (Coronet Books – Hodder and Stoughton), as a composition by the playwright, Tom Stoppard. 

Arithmetic – Poem by Carl Sandburg

Following on from yesterday’s poem on numbers, here is that well-known poem by Carl Sandburg on  ‘ARITHMETIC’ . . .

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your
    head.
Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how
    many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven — or five
    six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand
    to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and
    you can look out of the window and see the blue sky — or the
    answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again
    and see how it comes out this time.
If you take a number and double it and double it again and then
    double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger
    and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you
    what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.
Arithmetic is where you have to multiply — and you carry the
    multiplication table in your head and hope you won’t lose it.
If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you
    eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the
    other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody
    offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say
    Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?
If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she
    gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is
    better in arithmetic, you or your mother? 

More of Carl Sandburg’s poems can be found
on the Poem Hunter website at: Carl Sandburg

Detail of Collage by Clive Butler – c.1984

NUMEROPHOBIA

‘Teaching Maths’ … Collage by Clive Butler – c.1984

When numbers leap up at me
I often feel scared;
They can be aggressive
Render thinking impaired.
I try not to fluster
To think these things through,
But I can still end up muddled
Not having a clue.

In the shop I try hard
To keep check on my spend,
But I’m easily distracted
And I have to pretend
That I know what I’m doing,
Mind and brain won’t agree;
Are two for the price of one
Same as buy one get one free?

When I’m with my bank statement
Checking up what I’ve spent,
Deducting those refunds
Allowing for rent,
Assuming some interest,
Checking those bills,
It gives me a headache –
Cue for some pills.

Life should be much easier.
If only I’d been
An attentive student
I could have foreseen,
That time spent with maths
In school in my teens,
Might have paid off –
Unless it’s my genes!

Three score years and ten
I will not see again;
At least I know that
My bible’s my brain.
My life is a number
Too large to keep count
It’s approaching seven dozen –
I demand a recount.