Conference rusure::math

1556.0. "Are Mathematics and Poetry Fundamentally Similar?" by BEING::EDP (Always mount a scratch monkey.) Mon Feb 03 1992 09:16

    JoAnne S. Growney, "Are Mathematics and Poetry Fundamentally Similar?",
    _The American Mathematical Monthly_ 99, no. 2 (February 1992): 131.

    If you doubt their intrinsic similarity, consider the following
    quotations.  In each of the following, the key word ("mathematics" or
    "poetry" or "mathematician" or "poet" or a variation of one of these
    terms) has been left out, although the name of the author may provide a
    give-away clue.  Can you guess which art form is being described in
    each case?  The missing words are supplied at the end of the
    quotations.  [I've moved the authors' names to the end.  -- edp]

    (1) __________ is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

    (2) To think is thinkable -- that is the __________'s aim.
    [Is that a typo -- should it be "To think the thinkable"?]

    (3) All __________ [is] putting the infinite within the finite.

    (4) The moving power of __________ invention is not reasoning but
    imagination.

    (5) When you read and understand __________, comprehending its reach
    and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

    (6) __________ practice absolute freedom.

    (7) I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that
    it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any
    __________.

    (8) Do not imagine that __________ is hard and crabbed, and repulsive
    to common sense.  It is merely the etherealization of common sense.

    (9) The merit of __________, in its wildest forms, still consists in
    its truth; truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by words,
    but circuituously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as
    conductors.

    (10) It is a safe rule to apply that, when a __________ or
    philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking
    nonsense.

    (11) __________ is a habit.

    (12) . . . in __________ you don't understand things, you just get used
    to them.

    (13) __________ are all who love -- who feel great truths/And tell
    them.

    (14) The __________ is perfect only in so far as he is a perfect being,
    in so far as he perceives the beauty of truth; only then will his work
    be thorough, transparent, comprehensive, pure, clear, attractive, and
    even elegant.

    (15) . . . [In these days] the function of __________ as a game . . .
    [looms] larger than its function as a search for truth . . .

    (16) A thorough advocate in a just cause, a penetrating __________
    facing the starry heavens, both alike bear the semblance of divinity.

    (17) __________ is getting something right in language.

    The authors are:

    (1) Samuel Johnson
    (2) Cassius J. Keyser
    (3) Robert Browning
    (4) A. DeMorgan
    (5) Stephen Spender
    (6) Henry Adams
    (7) Randall Jarrell
    (8) Lord Kelvin
    (9) T. B. Macaulay
    (10) A. N. Whitehead
    (11) C. Day-Lewis
    (12) John von Neumann
    (13) P. J. Bailey, Festus
    (14) Goethe
    (15) C. Day-Lewis
    (16) Goethe
    (17) Howard Nemerov

    The answers are:
    
    The odd-numbered quotations are about poetry; the even-number ones are
    about mathematics.

Interesting topic! It reminds me that there is also a very strong parallel 
between computer programming and music composition. To my mind, a well-
written subroutine, say, is much like a sonata, and a major software system 
much like a symphony. Of course, I'm a bit weird...

    >JoAnne S. Growney, "Are Mathematics and Poetry Fundamentally Similar?",
    >_The American Mathematical Monthly_ 99, no. 2 (February 1992): 131.
    
    No, Mathematics and Poetry are not Fundamentally Similar, but ...
    
    Mathematicians and Poets are.
    
    When two persons set out to communicate original thoughts within the
    limits of conventional language(s), we are bound to find similarities,
    but they are due to the people, not the subject matter of the
    communications.
    
    imho,
    
    Dick

    I got all but the last one wrong.

    Re .3:
    
    I checked; the odd ones are about poetry, and the even ones are about
    math.
    
    
    				-- edp

	Since mathematics and poetry are both made or discovered
	by substantially the same
	architecture agent, they and all human mental endeavors have much in
	common.  We should compare human poetry and Dolphin poetry and 
	human math and dolphin math.

	Alas, I am neither, just a soft eng and a performance artist.
Tom