Showing posts with label Florence Nightingale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florence Nightingale. Show all posts

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Seeking poems about math-women

In this blog I have previously posted poems that speak of the lives of these math-women:

     Sophie Germain (1776-1831)
     Florence Nightingale  (1820-1910)
     Amalie "Emmy" Noether  (1882-1935)
     Grace Murray Hopper (1906 - 1988)

And also a poem about four influential teachers of mine; three of them math-people; three of them women.

I want more poems about women in mathematics;   
send me yours (or those of others) -- 
write new ones; CELEBRATE women in mathematics:

women who are alive or ones that have passed; 
women of fame or those without; 
women out in front or those in quiet corners -- 
women we want to remember.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Statistics -- math to improve man's lot

Today's poem honors nurse and statistician Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) and is found in a fine poetry collection by Mary Alexandra Agner, The Scientific Method.

   After Math     by Mary Alexandra Agner

               Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910

   Worth one thousand words, usually,
   but thousands dead
   were inked as a colored nautilus
   with chambers counting corpses
   by disease or sword or bullet.
   Hold this shell to your ear;
   hear only your heartbeat's echo.
   Numbers never had such voice
   until Florence drew
   coxcomb wedges for the dead.