Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America Conference 2009

This blog entry is to share a few moments and images of the AMS and MAA Joint Meeting held this year in Washington D.C. The first lonely image is a view from my hotel room bed as I tried to get to sleep by counting the sheep jumping over the Washington Monument. The weather for the most part was cold and rainy and made my three-quarter mile walk to the conference a little trying at times. However the last day was nice and offered the image below which was shot from my hotel room window as the sun was rising in the east.

The shot below is a 180 degree panoramic view of 21 images sewn together to provide an overview of the entire show of mathart. The show is always modestly done due to its modest budget (relative to art galleries) but it is always done well and the people who work on it are wonderful enthusiastic individuals who feel mathart can make a difference. They even gave out prizes this year.
The shot below is of the past president of the Mathematical Association of America, Joseph Gallian as he was browsing the show.

Speaking of browsing the show … The next image (below) is of our friend Ivars Peterson who writes about mathart for many publications including Science News.

From left to right: Reza Sarhangi the nucleus of the Bridges Conference on mathematical connections in art music and architecture , Annette Emerson, the Public Relations Officer of the AMS and Anne Burns, one of the Judges for the mathart exhibit and webmaster for the mathart exhibit webpage.
The next image is of Robert Fathauer who curates the mathart show each year and also owns and operated Tessellations a company devoted to selling objects that inspire the math aesthetic.

Here is Nat Friedman and one of his knots displaying a minimum surface by spanning a soap bubble film across the knot. Very interesting and simple stuff showing complex concepts.

The next image is of Reza Sarhangi with Arthur Benjamin who happens to spend a lot of time on stage racing calculators … I have seen him in action and yes, he can calculate in his brain faster than you can calculate on your hand calculator. Check out this video.

JoAnne Growney and Sarah Glaz recently edited an anthology of mathematical love poems titled “Strange Attractors”. The book was published by AK Peters and can be seen in the above photo at the bottom right of the image. Also in the photo are Klaus Peters (left) and his lovely wife Alice (Thus AK). The conference also provided a poetry reading session to deliver poems from the book. The event was organized by co-editor JoAnne and you can see the crowd gathering for the reading in the image below.

In the image above you can see JoAnne standing and speaking to the crowd and Sara sitting and listening (lower right). The image below is of fellow mathematical poet Bob Grumman as he delivers one of his long division mathematical visual poems.

The image above is of me delivering my poem "Prometheus's Epistle to Job"

Here is a link to a review of the poetry reading by Karren Alenier.

Prometheus’s Epistle Nominated For A Pushcart Prize In Poetry

I am extremely grateful and happy to announce that my orthogonal space poem “Prometheus’s Epistle to Job” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry by the poetry journal ZYZZYZVA.

Here is the Anouncement by ZYZZYVA - I see their blog has been moved or deleted - Here is my original letter from them

The Orthogonal Space Poem

The orthogonal space poem is one of the simplest mathematical structures one can use for mathematical poetry. The structure can be seen in numerous contexts in the discipline of the sciences. Examples in physics would include Newton’s second law “F = ma”, Ohms Law “E = IR”, the kinematical properties of “d = vt”, “p=mv” and E = Fd. Please notice all of the equations are in the form of ‘a’ equals ‘b’ multiplied by ‘c’ or “a = (b)(c)”. This wonderful equation states that the value of one particular concept is equal to the product of two values held by two other concepts. When this equation is depicted in a Cartesian coordinate system you can see that the latter two concepts exist in an orthogonal or perpendicular space.

Before I explain the “orthogonal space poem’s” use in mathematical poetry, let us look at this same mathematical structure in the context of science. Furthermore, before we look at a scientific example let is review a little mathematics. Let us first review the Cartesian coordinate system and its nomenclature.

When we look at the two-dimensional axis of a Cartesian coordinate system, we can see that by randomly picking a point somewhere on the Cartesian plane, then we see there exists is a relationship between this ‘chosen’ point and the point defining the origin of the coordinate system. This relationship is understood by the nomenclature of the coordinate pair (x,y) where x and y are distances along each axis from the origin. Furthermore, if we draw lines from a newly created point, orthogonally (perpendicular) to both the x-axis and the y-axis and taking into consideration the axis system in the background then we will make a rectangle.



The area of a rectangle is product of the lengths of its sides furthermore, in the upcoming example, it is the product of the values for the x and y coordinates of this “chosen” point. I assigned one corner of the rectangle at the origin point to make our example easier to see. Example: Let us pick a point defined by the x-y coordinates of (11,13) and draw lines perpendicular to the axes to illuminate the concept that I just stated. The area of any rectangle is equal to its height multiplied by its base (The product of the lengths of its sides). We have a green rectangle delineated on our axis system. (See figure. 1) The height of our rectangle is 13 units and its base is 11 units. The area of our rectangle is 143 square units … or 13 X 11 = 143 This later example is one of pure mathematics. However if we want to use math as a language then we will have to apply concepts or words to our axis system.

Let us look at a typical physics problem of distance, velocity and time displayed on a two dimensional axis system. Let us assign the y-axis to be levels of velocity in units of miles per hour and the x-axis to be amounts of time in units of hours. Furthermore, let us look at an example using the concept of the “distance an object has traveled is equal to the velocity of that object multiplied by the time the object has traveled.” or “d = vt” In this example let us look at the Cartesian coordinate system as well as its orthogonal construction.

We will use the same pure mathematical example as before but by our contextualizing the axis and assigning the y-axis to represent velocity and the x-axis to represent time, our original point from the last example (11,13) has a new meaning. To reiterate … the point before was in the realm of pure mathematics but now the point represents a moment in time of a speeding object. The object is traveling 13 miles per hour and has been traveling for 11 hours. So to calculate, (d = vt), the distance the object has traveled we must multiply the velocity by the time or 13 miles per hour times 11 hours which equals 143 miles.

In essence, what we have done has been to assign a concept by using words (velocity and time) to our axis system. Moving our attention up or down on the y-axis displays different values of velocity. Moving left and right on, the x-axis displays different amounts of duration or time. Physical experimentation can easily verify the veracity of this equation. In addition, the same experimentation verifies the verbal concepts and their relationship to each other that we have assigned to our axis system. We can see the relationship between the concepts of distance, velocity and time spread out on a two-dimensional plane via our axis system. It is important to note that these concepts occupy orthogonal spaces as well as all equations in the form of a = (b)(c).

The orthogonal space poem possesses the exact same form as our scientific equations however, our intention is poetic as opposed to science.

For our example lets look at the following orthogonal space poem which is titled “Prometheus’s Epistle To Job”

In this poem Prometheus expresses to Job that the suffering of pious people is equal to the arrogance of their God divided by the level of ostentatious generosity imparted by their God.

Lets see how this poem relates to an orthogonal space using a Cartesian coordinate system. We can see how it follows the same structure as the previous physics example.

Another important aspect of creating a orthogonal space poem is to examine all the syntactically different synonymous permutations. Let me reiterate, the structure for an orthogonal poem is a = b c which means that we can solve the equation three different ways. a = b c, b = a/c and c = a/b. When creating an orthogonal space poem you would want to solve and analyze your poem all three different ways to make sure that the poem makes ‘aesthetic sense’ in each different form. Lets look at the latter poem as an example.

The suffering of pious people = The arrogance of their God “divided by” The ostentatious generosity of their God

This poem should also make sense in its two other syntactically different however, synonymous structures.

The arrogance of their God = The suffering of pious people “multiplied by” The ostentatious generosity of their God

And:

The ostentatious generosity of their God = The arrogance of their God "divided by" The suffering of pious people

Prometheus Epistle to Job

Do the muses scatter ancient fragments of thought or do they just perpetuate them. How is it that the ancient Greek Titans can still speak?

also see Orthogonal Space Poem