Sunday, April 09, 2006

The Fib

Gregory K proposes a new form of mathematics-based poetry: the "Fib". The idea is simple: each line of the poem must have a number of syllables that equals the number at this position of the Fibonacci sequence. Example:
One
Small,
Precise,
Poetic,
Spiraling mixture:
Math plus poetry yields the Fib.
As Clive Thompson points out,
Even more lovely is the fact that the Fibonacci sequence officially begins with a zero. That means that the true first line of every Fib is always the same: Silence.
Start with a moment of rest. How beautiful.

Here's my 'umble contribution:

I
like
to blog.
Frequently.
Theory matters.
Computer science (theory)
is my home and geometric algorithms are
sublime. Let P be a set of points in general position in the plane. Amen.
Update (4/14): I was mentioned in the New York Times Book Section !
Categories

9 comments:

  1. Nice Fibbery, Suresh. Thanks for stopping by, linking in, and writing a Fib! 

    Posted by Gregory K.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love it! I wonder how long it would take to use a lexicon and a scripting language to make a generator of this type of poetry. 

    Posted by Kunal

    ReplyDelete
  3. Suresh, 5th line, doesn't 'theory matters' have 4 syllables? 

    Posted by Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
  4. the-o-ry matt-ers

    it's the-o-ry rather than thee-ry 

    Posted by Suresh

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you, this is fun...but,
    My
    Life
    is a
    plethora
    of more things to do
    than there are minutes in the day. 

    Posted by LindaM

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi, Suresh. I hope you're having as much fun this weekend as I am. This has to prove some theory of randomness or web distribution or SOMETHING, but I'm not bothering to analyze.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What is the story of the "Let P be a set of points in general position" "Amen" joke? 

    Posted by Luca

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well, I got the actual line from Jeff Erickson. The joke is that almost all geometry papers will start with a statement of this kind (at least the classical papers), and so it seems a fitting signifier for the field.

    and like all jokes, this one does poorly when held up to the light and examined critically ;) 

    Posted by Suresh

    ReplyDelete
  9. Funny fib. I love it!
    I stumbled across your blog when googling for Fibs.

    Keep going.

     

    Posted by hema

    ReplyDelete

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