BRIDGES, PARALLELS, INTERSECTIONS, DIVERGENCES, COLLISIONS…
BRIDGES, PARALLELS, INTERSECTIONS, DIVERGENCES, COLLISIONS…

Summary/Abstract: Under this apparently misleading title, the paper may be seen as a short introduction to the much larger and complex topic of the relationships between poetry and mathematics, with the rather discouraging premise—and no less satisfactory conclusion—that they are both similar and different. The author’s two questions, “why” and “who” (combined into “why would mathematicians prefer to be assimilated to the status of poets?”) take the investigation through the problems of origins, use of language, meaning making, types of thinking and cognition, patterns, analogies and metaphor, implications for education, the beauty criterion…, math poetry (and poetic math?). All in all, a small step in a more humanistic understanding of mathematics, together with a more mathematically grounded understanding of poetry.

• Details
• Contents