Sherrill's Music

The similar triangles poem above titled Sherrill's Music is inspired by Robert Sherrill's 1970 book titled "Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music"

A Math Art Moment #12

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite. —Paul Dirac

To see more delineations click here

The Lotto

Here is a polyaesthetic piece of mathematical visual poetry based on the similar triangles poem titled “LOTTO” The photo was shot in Las Vegas. The inspiration for the piece came while being part of a shared "lotto pot" in an office setting. Watching all of the people fantasizing about winning was fascinating.

The poem can be read multiple ways including the following:

The lotto is to financial fantasy as ogling pornograpy is to sexual fantasy. 

-or-

The lotto is to ogling pornograpy as financial fantasy is to sexual fantasy.

Math Test Results (Math Jokes)

Kevin Watters sent me a few math jokes the other day and I thought it may be nice to share them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is pretty close to being visual mathematical poetry. The student is probably a fine art major and got lost in his/her own thoughts --- why answer the question when you can be creative?
:)

You would think the student would get some extra credit for this ... ok maybe not.

This student deserves no extra credit.



I know this feeling.

Freshness

Here is a Polyaesthetic piece with a 'Similar Triangles Poem' titled "Freshness"

The Question of De Chrico

I have noticed many small mathematical poems on the internet that are in the form of A+B=C . This form is a perfectly legitimate form however, there are times when I think the author intended you to understand it in terms of A*B=C . There is some confusion as to what is the difference between addition and multiplication within the realm of mathematical poetry. I would love to hear anyone try to explain the difference between the two. In the mean time I have posted a piece above that asks that very question.

The piece is titled: “THE QUESTION OF DE CHIRICO” and it poses the question: “Is the image on the right side of the piece equal to the ideas of Baltimore times De Chirico or is the image equal to the ideas of Baltimore plus De Chirico?

I invite anyone to choose between the two statements and explain why and I will post the answers.

The King's Crown

Here is another Similar Triangles Poem entitled "The Kings Crown"

Natural Selection

This entry is a polyaesthetic piece titled "Natural Selection" the structure of the poem inside is a similar triangle poem.

Read Me First

Read me first

In this section of the side bar there are four articles.

The first article is a paper that was published in the journal of mathematics and the arts titled “Polyaesthetics and Mathematical Poetry”. This paper is a good introduction to Mathematical Poetry for it shows some of the main ideas as well as some techniques used to create mathematical poetry. One of the more important ideas it addresses is that of mathematical metaphor. The paper addresses basic theory as well as providing examples.

The second article is a paper published in the 2006 Bridges Proceedings titled “Verbogeometry, The confluence of words and analytic geometry” This paper explains the mechanics of how mathematical poetry can use Cartesian space as a medium for words. It provides examples of analytic geometry as well as the mathematical poetic counterpart.

The third article is an interview published online at word for/word a journal of new writing. The interview was conducted by poet/theoretician Gregory Vincent Thomasino and is formulated in three groups of questions. The first group of questions is about the influences of Kaz Maslanka and the second and third address mathematical poetic theory.

The forth article is a list of terminology that is related to the area where the arts and mathematics meet.

Substitution in Mathematical Poetry

Substitution in Mathematical Poetry

If you have no understanding of similar triangles poems then please read about it at the following link: “Similar Triangles Poem”

This Blog entry will show an example of substitution in mathematical poetry. Substitution can occur when we have two equations that have a common term. For example let’s look at the two equations which have the same form as two similar triangles poems: A = BD/E and A = HJ/U since both equations have the term ‘A’ in common and consequentially they both happen to be solved for ‘A’ then we can set both equations equal to each other as such:

BD/E = HJ/U

We know that we can solve for any of the variables in our new equation and get a new equation in terms of one variable. Let do so and solve for ‘J’ so we now have: J=UBD/EH

So now let’s apply what we have just witnessed to two similar triangles poems.

First of all we must look at the following two poems.

We know from our earlier example that we can solve a mathematical equation for any term in it. If we take the first poem and solve it for “my memories” we then can present the poem as:

Notice (below) that we have the two poems solved for the same term (my memories).

Now we can set each poem equal to each other because they both have identical terms. (see below)

We also know that we can solve this poetic equation for any of the terms in it. So let us solve this poem in terms of “Delaware River”

Now we can see that the later poem was derived from the two similar triangles poems shown at the top. What is interesting is that all of the logical processes used to create the first two poems are contained in our resultant poem including the subtle differences in the contexts of each initial poem.
Substitution can also be used in poems created by different poets as long as they have a common term. Follow this link to collaborative substitution poems.

The following polyaesthetic piece uses the image of a shipping beacon located at Cedar Swamp on the Delaware side of the Delaware River. The full Delaware River Poem from our example is nestled in the lower left hand corner of the image. The physical size of the digital image is 67” x 31”

Delaware River Correction

I actually made a mistake on my last blog entry. I meant to post the two similar triangles poems (above). If you were on your toes you would have noticed that the last blog entry was actually the same equation (poem) solved for different terms. Today’s entry is two different poems that also share a common term. What is interesting is what we will do with these two poems on the next blog entry. Can you guess what I will do?

Delaware River Memories

Here are a couple of similar triangles poems inspired by a romantic encounter around ‘Cedar Swamp’ on the Delaware River. Notice that they both have one term in common.

My Response To a Critic

I would like to address a comment made in reference to the piece “Peano’s String; A History of Spiritual Stories”(displayed above) … the following (text in green) is a copy of a comment from my blog entry “New Work Accepted At The Bridges Show In Leeuwarden Netherlands Aug 2008”:

This is a strange place. Im all for maths, dont get me wrong. Anyone who's any good at maths needs to make it part of themself but democrats? Abraham? maths is made a cliche with these comparisons. Everything can be expressed in maths but some things shouldnt. Just make a billboard with euler's formula

My response:

I appreciate you giving me some feedback to my blog and I would love to engage you in discourse on any concerns that you may have. I am certainly not going to imply that I am always correct in my assumptions of anything. Furthermore I consider myself a student.

I want to note that I may not defend mathematical poems made by others so if you wish to criticize the axiomatic poem concerning Barack Obama and the democrats you may wish to address your concerns to its author. I also wish to make this same disclaimer concerning any mathematical poetry posted on this blog that is not authored by me. However, I will be happy to address any concerns or criticism involving my work. My Job at this blog is to promote interest in mathematical poetry not criticize it. Yet, I may someday express criticism of someones work if I feel “the discipline” of mathematical poetry is being subverted.

To get to your concerns let’s look at the term cliché and what Wikipedia has to say about it:

A cliché (from French, pronounced [klɪ'ʃe]) is a phrase, expression, or idea that has been overused to the point of losing its intended force or novelty, especially when at some time it was considered distinctively forceful or novel. The term is most likely to be used in a negative context.

It seems that you have applied this term ‘cliché’ to my axiomatic poem titled, “Peano’s String; A History of Spiritual Stories”. So I can only assume that there is something about this mathematical poem that you would consider overused. It is hard to imagine that you may be referring to mathematical poetry in general since there is so little of it. What is it that is overused here? Is your concern related to my references to biblical history? Are you feeling that I have taken biblical references out of context in jest? I can only say that while I can see how one may find this mathematical poem humorous, the root of it can be taken very serious. Maybe, what you may really be trying to say, is that mathematical poetry is aesthetically trivial. This may be is a little more difficult for me to defend due to my belief that just because I find something beautiful I can never assume that anyone else would find it such. However, I do find mathematical poetry extremely beautiful especially in its use of dual aesthetics. My fear is that you, or anyone else for that matter, will discard this entire proposition and never really answer the following questions.

1. From a cognitive scientific point of view what is a metaphor, what are the parts within the structure of a metaphor and what are their relationship to mathematics in general and mathematical equations in particular?

2. What is the difference between connotation and denotation and how do they apply to the language of mathematics?

3. When looking at the structure of a mathematical equation how does that structure relate to other phenomena that can be described with that same mathematical structure?

4. Are the commonalities between identical mathematical structures purely linguistic? Or are they physical?... Or maybe spiritual? Could there be something such as archetypical equations?

5. What are the differences between the aesthetics of mathematics and the aesthetics of poetry or art? How can those differences be delineated when analyzing a mathematical poem?

6. How does mathematical poetry relate to the history of art, poetry and applied mathematics? Can mathematical poetry be considered a legitimate field of applied mathematics?


And now let’s address this mathematical poem in particular:


7. What is the relationship of Natural numbers to linear historical events?

8. What do the descendents of Abraham have to do with current cultural events especially ones that concern the military of the United States of America? Who are the children of Abraham and what is the historical and spiritual relationship that they share.

9. How are cultural stories passed from generation to generation?

10. How are mytho-spiritual (religious) stories created? How does deities and deification come to be? What is the source of the ‘so called’ divine inspirations that create works of poetry and art? And what is their relationship to this piece of art in particular.

11. What is the relationship of cats in mytho-spiritual literature? What is the meaning of cat when applied to a human being? What is the meaning of a cat when applied to a God?

12. When looking at the proofs using these axioms what can be said poetically from the proofs.

13. What are the proofs that can be created from Peano’s axioms?

14. How do questions 7 through 13 relate to questions 1 through 6?

I am not going to discount that you may provide an argument to the idea that my work is cliché and trivial but I would hope you address the latter questions within your argument.

Thanks!

Kaz

The Gift of San Shin 산신 (Polyaesthetic)

Here is the Polyaesthetic version of "The Gift of San Shin" which utilizes a Similar Triangles Poem.

In the vernacular this mathematical poem can be spoken four ways but the two most important ways are: 1.) Wisdom is to Adversity as the Wind is to a Cage  2.) Wisdom is to the Wind as Adversity is to a Cage.  It can also be put into the syntax of an orthogonal space poem.   I like to think of the denominator of  orthogonal space poem as some kind of valve that controls the value on the other side of the equal sign. For example I like to look at the limit of "The Cage" as it approaches zero thereby making "Wisdom" near infinite. 

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General Music

Here is another “Similar Triangle Poem” Titled “General Music” Inspired by the differences in their philosophy of battle execution.

공의 옉 설 The Empty Paradox

Here is the Korean version of “The Empty Paradox” "공의 옉 설"

The Empty Paradox

Here is a new piece titled "The Empty Paradox"
C= Compassion and W= Wisdom
The Chinese character is 'Buddha's mind'
So we have C multiplied times W equals the limit of (1/x) as 'x' approaches Buddha's mind.

The equation is the familiar function of x equal to 1/x which yields a hyperbolic curve when graphed and results an asymptote when x = 0. Compassion multiplied by Wisdom is equal to 1 over X as the limit of X approaches Buddha’s mind. Buddhist philosophy tells us that Buddha’s mind is emptiness yet the philosophy also tells us that emptiness is different than nothingness or zero. In fact it is quite paradoxical for we are told that emptiness is very much something. This piece also uses visual imagery for poetic expression with Buddhist symbolism of flexibility and eternity represented by bamboo and pine trees respectively.

산신 의 선물

Here is the Korean version of the Similar Triangle Poem titled “The Gift of San Shin / 산신 의 선물

” shown in the previous post.

The Gift of San Shin 산신

Here is another Similar Triangles Poem inspired by the Korean Mountain spirit San Shin 산신