Re: Poem of Interest

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, John Cooper wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, brian whatcott wrote:
> > I once was graced to read an extended contemporary verse  (1990?)
> > couched entirely in the language of physics and in chemical terms,
> > and it was good.
>   Tom Leherer did a pretty fair rendition of the Periodic Table .. "I hope
> you're all taking notes; there'll be a short quiz next period."
>
>  John N. Cooper, Chemistry
>  Bucknell University
>  Lewisburg PA 17837-2005
>  jcooper@bucknell.edu
>  http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jcooper
>  VOX 570-577-3673    FAX 570-577-1739
        Here's my own contribution to scientific poetry, written when I
was teaching a calculus class:

Verses in celebration of Be Kind to Irrational Numbers Week

I.
INTIMACY

Darling, I long to arouse you
 From out of the depth of your slumbers
With whispered salacious descriptions
Of erotic irrational numbers.


II.
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET #I.

My best-loved integer is number two.
It, oddly, is the only even prime,
And, big enough to count both me and you,
It keeps its value constant throughout time.
But integers have limited attractions;
For they have dispositions so affected
They'll only beget rational type fractions;
All other kinds of numbers they've rejected.
My love for two is therefore quite subdued
And hardly stimulates that appetite
That can precede a blissful interlude
Whose passing leaves us filled with rapt delight.
        The greatest number isn't very much
        If not accompanied by sensuous touch.


III
With Apologies to Dorothy Parker from
whom I have Stolen One of my Favorite
First Lines

Authors, and actors, and artists, and such
Don't use irrational numbers too much.
Search through the pages of Winnie-the-Pooh;
You'll find no mention of square root of two,
Nor could Cole Porter imagine a score
Having a metre of pi, over four.
Salvadore Dali, when he was alive
Neglected to portray the arcsine of five.
So let the trumpets, both local and national
Sound out the praises of numbers irrash-nal.


--
Franz Kafka's novels and novella's are so Kafkaesque that one has to
wonder at the enormity of coincidence required to have produced a writer
named Kafka to write them.
                        Greg Nagan from "The Metamorphosis" in
                     <The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>