The Energy To Break My Heart

Unfortunately to see it you must click here


This poem uses the physics equation for energy E = Fd Energy is also called work "W"

Energy (or work) is the force applied to an object multiplied by distance that object travels
If we pull force out of the context of the sentence above and look at what defines force we will find that Newton’s second law states Force is equal to the mass of an object multiplied by the acceleration the object is experiencing. Now if we look at acceleration we find that acceleration is the change in velocity per the change in time. In our energy equation we are multiplying the F times the distance the object is traveling. The way we calculate distances is with the distance formula. The poem above uses the distance formula in a nine dimensional space where every verbogeometrical axis is described in the poem underneath the radical.

Optical Illusion Contest

Here is something unrelated to mathematical poetry but interesting none the less. I received this information from my vision science list today. These are the results from the best optical illusion contest of 2006 --- If you are an interested vision scientist, they are now calling for submission to the 2007 contest.

Check out the winners of 2006 here
Go to this page then click on TOP 10 finalists

The History Of Numbers

Karl Kempton sent me this link ... all I could say was WOW!
check out all these books (click here)

Infinity In Science / Poetry

I tend to think that without logic, you cannot communicate and without communication, you cannot have a philosophy. To me logic presupposes philosophy ... Logic is the supportive structure for thought without it everything would fall apart, no one could predict where our next meal would come from, much less anything else. The other side of the coin is that without a philosophy coloring ones theory of logic, ones logic has no starting point. In this sense, ones logic can have no logic without a philosophical stone to stand on. It is a vicious circle!

The clipping below originally came from a polytope list and was sent to me by my friend the mathematician Paul Gailiunas. My original question to him a few weeks ago concerned the importance of infinity within modern scientific equations. Math poets seem to gravitate toward using infinity in our math poems and as professor Gailiunas told me scientists tend to avoid infinity as much as they can. The following is an example of scientific thinking in this area.

Kaz,
This came from a completely different direction.
I thought you might beinterested.
Paul

On Thu 7 Sep 2006 (21:46:48 +0100), guy@steelpillow.com wrote:On Wed, 6 Sep 2006 08:54:09, "Wenninger, Magnus" wrote:>the word Finitism caught my attention. Wow! I thought ...>This is something I have to bring to the attention>of our List. You can find it at:>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/geometry-finitism/ In schools of divinity it is often said that philosophy is the handmaid of theology. But I think it is equally true that philosophy is the handmaid of>mathematics as well. How about that? At risk of wandering a little off the List's home territory, I find it hard to think of a discipline which does *not* rely on philosophy as its handmaid. Without philosophy there can be neither meaning nor logic, and without these there can be no rational thought or communication of ideas. I was of course intrigued to find another discipline where the broken natureof Euclidean lines causes a broken theory. I get the impression from Mathworld that discrete projective geometry is a fairly developed discipline, and I wonder whether finitists would, like us reciprocists (I shy away from"dualists" where theology appears in the same message!), do better to keep their distance from old Euclid's ghost. It seems to me that finitism is intimately bound to the philosophy of science. I recall the verification principle, favoured by logical positivists, that no statement has any meaning unless it can, at least in principle, be verified byexperiment. As a philosophical principle it fell at the first hurdle - how do we verify the verification principle itself? - and logical positivism soon faded from all but the history books. The principle remains a cornerstone of the scientific method - an article of faith that reality has an ultimate order. A finitist might observe that if something is suspected to be infinite, then this cannot be verified by experiment, and therefore no infinity has any scientific value. It follows that any mathematical model of any scientific phenomenon should preferably contain no infinities. Of course, if we seek a mathematical model of the underlying reality rather than the scientific observations alone, then we are using our maths to do philosophy and are not restricted to finitism.Modern quantum mechanics and general relativity are both plagued by infinities. Does this mean that they are in truth philosophical theories, with little to offer the hardworking scientist but approximations and embarrassing work arounds? If so, then where should philosophy end and theology begin? And why?

The Equation For Aesthetic Measure By Birkhoff

My friend Keith Rowley pointed me at the equation above by 19th century American Mathematician George David Birkhoff. The equation comes from Birkhoff’s 1933 book entitled “Aesthetic Measure”. Here is a perfect example of an equation intended for artistic purpose and yet denotative. Here Birkhoff intends to write an equation to measure levels of aesthetic based on a ratio of order and complexity. Personally, I feel trying to quantify something as broad as the word ‘aesthetic’ is extremely difficult and elusive. I have not read his book so I withhold more comment until I have read what he has to say. My intuition tells me what he is doing is much like my syncopation theory. It will be interesting to see what differences there are.

Scott Glassman Responds

Detail of Factorial for Scott Glassman (above)


Scott Glassman responds to my posting of his poem with my translations. I believe this gives even more detail to the workings of Scott’s poetry:

Kaz,

Your analysis is fantastic, and takes the poem to a very intricate term-bound level, one maybe lurking in logic + subsconscious forces. I always find the tension between emotions and quantification to be wonderful and you elucidate this beautifully in the visualized quotients.

I see how "I" an "I" is divided by elements, sun, burning, moon, etc. "I" or identity, or body, is a ratio of dust and cosmic energy, no better expressed than the direct equations you write out. Seems to cut through the bull to the crux of the matter.

The you - myself graphic you present is compelling because it made me think more about what I was, or my subconscious, was getting out. you - myself = luck. Or getting out of my own head, the ego, is a positive thing and will bring all the benefits. This is a frequent theme in what I write because I often try to disable the "I" and write from some central, unified place. luck = myself + you recognizes that in addition to self-disabling ego-dissolution work, there must also be an outside energy one connects with, an "other" on which "luck" is contingent. (Not really "luck" then anymore I guess is it). love is another product of myself + you.

myself + you = luck / love

an equal ratio of these elements, for someone in love is lucky and vice versa, seemingly to an equal degree

The final part you elucidate is probably the most fascinating because it appears at first to turn the whole logic on its head.

love = myself - you

What I think this is saying, or getting at, is the importance of letting go, of surrendering that which makes one most complete. That human beings or forces ALTHOUGH they may complement one another and co-exist in a single orbit, as do electrons of an atom-- one is not made subservient to the other, one is not made solely for the other's pleasure. Now I'm aware this is entering into the realm of the philosophical, the why-are-we-here-and-seperate question? And I suppose it speaks to the inherent integrity of nature, the particles that solid matter is made from, always particulate, having their boundaries as does the earth, moon, dewdrop, etc. Just above the unified plain, what is visible to the most powerful microscopes. Might be expressed:

myself - you = integrity / love

I'm linking the image and post to my blog. Thanks again for your attention to the poem, opening its dimensions for me.

Scott