Category Archives: Mathematics and the Arts

How to Celebrate Math Poetry Month

April is the intersection of Math Awareness Month and National Poetry Month, so obviously we are all celebrating Math Poetry Month. Some of my favorite posts on Roots of Unity have been about poetry. This year, I posted “In Praise of Fractals” … Continue reading

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Math In Pictures

When I was in graduate school I mostly worked really hard all the time. Like we all do, right? But occasionally, my officemates and I would get a bit punchy, and the need to blow off steam would momentarily supersede … Continue reading

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$${Mathematicians} \subset {Artists}$$

Certain equations or concepts strike us as beautiful, stunning even. As she walked amongst the aquatints on the wall of Yale Art Gallery’s latest exhibit entitled “Concinnitas”, Jen Christiansen posed the title question of her blog post: “Math is Beautiful, … Continue reading

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You Were on the Moon: Astropoetry from Tychogirl

After my last post about one-syllable math, I tried my hand at a proof of the math fact of Rolle in short words. The constraints and focus on words themselves got me thinking about mathematics in a way I usually … Continue reading

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Simple Words, Complicated Math

A couple years ago, xkcd described the Saturn V rocket (Up Goer 5) using only the thousand ten hundred most common English words. Of course, xkcd readers were eager to try it themselves, and geneticist Theo Sanderson created an online text … Continue reading

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Highly Unlikely Triangles and Other Beaded Mathematics

I first encountered Gwen Fisher’s work at the fiber arts exhibit at the 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore. Fisher has a Ph.D. in math education and is an accomplished mathematical artist who specializes in beading. I featured one of her … Continue reading

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Medaling Mathematicians

You may consider the Fields Medal a boon to the mathematical community as it showcases amazing young mathematicians and brings math into the limelight. Or you may view the Fields Medal as an unfortunate reinforcement of the notion that mathematics … Continue reading

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Alan Turing on Stage and Screen

It was a big week for Alan Turing dramatizations. On Monday, the UK and US trailers for the Turing biopic The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, were released, and on Wednesday, the 102nd anniversary of Turing’s birth, the Pet Shop … Continue reading

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Mathematician Presents Flawed Proof – in a work of fiction

Following Evelyn’s last post about the new Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, I will now discuss the opposite of wild mathematical success. Depending on how excited you are about public speaking, the moments before giving a talk at a math conference may be … Continue reading

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Visualize Your Algorithms

As a college student in the ‘90’s with a penchant for “visual learning” I was never drawn to computer science. My one computer science class focused mostly on syntax and basic logic. Had shuffling and sorting been presented as eye-catching … Continue reading

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