birdhouses in sun
fifty oval entryways:
occupants zero
One of the haiku newsletters sent out a notice about a math haiku contest happening this month. The deadline is leap-year day, Feb. 29th, kind of a math-centric day on its own (every four years adding up quarter days to make a new one)--and the date being celebrated "March 14(3.14) is the Day of Mathematics because π=3.1415・・・"
Check out the examples they offer on their flyer. They are not straight math problems, for instance a coin toss was used to show probability and a mountain climb proved the existence of angles. And subtraction was exhibited by a spoiled son at a casino.
A chance (get-it, improbable!) conversation I had while walking through IU campus yesterday fits right in with this topic. I'd never heard about the Fibonacci Sequence, but a friend mentioned that his wife had just completed a print based on it. All kinds of flowers and shells exhibit this pattern, so there's lots of room to incorporate one of these patterns into a math haiku. As for me, I'll stay fascinated by null and zero.
My friend, Dennis Walsh, who is a statistics professor sent me this haiku:
the numbers crumble
as I hike across the slopes
of mathematics.
Here's the address to the PDF announcing the contest with some sample haiku: http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1106162827962-4/Math+Haiku+Competition.pdf
Get integral--start composing some haiku using both sides of your brain!
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