The top entries in the Math Meets Poetry Contest
The Competitions Committee enjoyed every entry and thanks all the participants. Our choices are listed below, but click here to download all the entries and pick your own favorites!
The first four entries below were judged to be equally excellent.
BEST LIMERICK
Ken Romeo '04
Mengoli posed a problem for those who dared
"Sum from one to infinity, one on n squared."
'Twas Leonhard Euler
Who played the spoiler.
When "pi squared on six" he correctly declared!
FERMAT PRIZE FOR HISTORY OF MATH HAIKU
Ryan Ward '11
I have discovered
A truly marvelous proof
Doesn't fit Haiku
STUDENTS' CHOICE AWARD (as chosen by the students in Lynn Breyfogle's Foundation Seminar "When Math and Lit Intersect.")
Nicole Falcaro '09
A Mathematician's Love Story: The Downfall of Statisticians and the Realization of a Pure Mathematician
I was the radius to your circumference.
The matchmaker, Pi, your wingman
Unioned us and you encircled and completed me.
You were the eigenvalue of my matrix
As our lives, I hoped, would always go
In the same direction (though your magnitude greater than mine).
We met on the bus.
I had a book; you saw my ISBN number.
You used error detecting codes;
You discovered the ISBN to my heart.
Remember that time
You saw my whole perimeter
You studied my topology
You liked my arc length
You wanted to be tangent to my curves
But I suggested we sleep like logs.
I thought you were a real value,
A perfect number,
And like a statistician, a mean lover.
And that's where we diverged.
Your statistician self could never be purely certain.
Over time I had reasonable doubt
That you were significantly different from the rest.
I had a high confidence level
That I should have rejected you
the first time you creeped on my book.
Why did I think our love
could stem from investigative work on your part?
What a type 2 error I have made.
THE PUTNAM AWARD
Joe Ruby '11
The students wake up at a quarter past eight
They're all showered by twenty past nine
They go get their coffee and anxiously wait
For the bell tower's ten-o-clock chime.
They sit in the room drinking milk, eating donuts;
Their visages broadcast "Hooray!"
The best and the brightest are ready to go nuts:
The Putnam Exam is today!
The students come to at five minutes 'til one
A few look like they have been punched...
This might not be the definition of "fun,"
But at least they all get a free lunch.
They chat about questions 1, 2, 3, and 4;
From 5 and 6 they stay away.
They walk up the hill, (somewhat) ready for more:
The Putnam Exam is today!
The students wake up at ten minutes 'til six,
They've been sleeping since twenty 'til five.
They know they've been duped by a horrible trick:
They'd been robbed of six hours of their lives.
Why they chose to sign up for the humiliation,
Most could not begin to say,
Since now they're all longing for winter vacation
As the sun goes down on Putnam day.
*****
He walks to the office and knocks on the door.
"Come on in," says the prof. who's been waiting.
"Well, give me the news, teacher, what was my score?"
"You did well, my friend, you got an 18!"
And he then understood why he did what he did,
Why he gave so much effort that day.
As he walked down the hall the prof. said, "Study, kid,
The next Putnam's just eight months away!"
HONORABLE MENTION in alphabetical order
Greg Adams
e is The number
The mother of all bases
It's transcendental
John Bourke
Monday, proof is close,
Reduced to lemma Thursday.
Friday, lemma false.
Matt Mizuhara '12
A proof by cases:
Simple and effective plan...
Bar coloring maps
Janice Pearson
It was difficult finding a path
As her poorest of subjects was math
She could understand ten
But would rather do Zen
And read poems by Sylvia Plath
Howard Smith
With an extra co-ordinate axis
and a shed-full of mins and maxes
it's easy to see
why we all like calc 3
(though it doesn't help much with the taxes).
Bridget Sweet
Math makes me nauseous.
I guess I'm not bad at it,
but would rather sing.
RUNNERS-UP FOR STUDENTS' CHOICE AWARD
Greg Adams
There once was a bottle of Klein
For the drink he loved so fine.
That container was stout,
But the inside was out.
So the beer on the floor made him whine.
Joe Ruby
If I was to take a bath
I'd fill my bath with liquid math
And use plus signs to wash my ath...
How I love my math!
