Tag Archives: poetry

Airline Logic

September 27, 2026Humor, Mathematical Humor, Poetry, Problem Solving, Recreational Math, Singapore Mathairline, discrimination, fairness, haiku, humor, logic, luggage charges, math meme, poetry, travel, weightKow-Cheong Yan

Airline Logic

Sixty-eight grounded,
one-two-four sails through the gate.
Airline math is odd.

Whether it’s depicted as a cartoon or a meme, we all laugh at this unfair weight preference (or weight discrimination), yet we seem powerless to do anything about this airline logic—or illogic.

If airlines truly care about their passengers’ welfare, isn’t it long overdue that they examine this “weight bias” that favors one group while discriminating against another?

If some airlines have already considered charging larger passengers double fare because they need to occupy two seats, shouldn’t they also seriously consider the total weight of every passenger plus their luggage to create a fairer system?

A Fairer Charge

A fairer charge: taking into account the weight of both the passenger and their luggage? How soon would this new normal in regional and international travel take place, to the satisfaction of both airlines and customers?

Would we start seeing more toddlers and underweight kids with oversized luggage lining up to check in?

The chaotic and/or comical scene at the airport or in immigration would make boarding less boring.

Logically & fairly yours

Math is a young woman’s game too

September 13, 2026Poetry, Problem Solving, Recreational Mathapprenticeship, braids, collaboration, G. H. Hardy, India, Joan Birman, knots, math proof, mentorship, poetry, Srinivasa Ramanujan, tanka, topology, Vasudha BharathramKow-Cheong Yan

Dr. Joan Birman, nonagenarian mathematician

A tanka that celebrates a mentor-mentee mathematical journey:

The Birman-Vasudha Collaboration

A female version
of Hardy-Ramanujan—
with fellow Brendle,
the trio proved a years-long
unsolved braid-theory knot.

The story of a 92-year-old mathematician mentoring her teenage apprentice shows that math isn’t just a young man’s game, but also a young (and old) woman’s game. It also debunks the myth that if you haven’t produced or published your best math by forty, your productivity is only heading south from then on.

Joan Birman (now 99), Tara E. Brendle, and Vasudha Bharathram (a young mathematician of Indian origin who is beginning a Princeton PhD) recently proved that the Burau representation of the braid group is faithful for n = 4. This resolved a decades-old (roughly 90-year) open case in braid and knot theory and low-dimensional topology that had defeated and humbled the giants.

Nonagenarian Birman’s email reply to the younger Vasudha—and her later guidance of her protégé’s mathematical path—forms a female parallel to G. H. Hardy’s response to a letter from the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Mathematical longevity doesn’t stop at forty or even sixty; you can still be mathematically active and productive long after you’ve retired from formal employment.

For most of us who don’t have what it takes to crack a long-unsolved topological nut or untie a stubborn topology knot, we can still mentor a young man or woman who is often stifled or bored by canned school math.

Collaboratively yours

The Magic and Math of Rainbows

July 1, 2026Recreational Math, Singapore Math, Theomaticsbeauty, divine covenant, geometry, math, Newton’s prism, Noah’s flood, Pie in the Sky, poetry, rainbow, refraction, science, tanka, The Geometry of Rainbows, The Science of Rainbows, theomatics, white light, wonderKow-Cheong Yan

Few agnostics and believers would disagree that the rainbow is enchantingly and mesmerizingly beautiful to the naked eye.

To faithful believers, the rainbow reminds them of its spiritual connection to their existence — it’s more than just a pretty arc of color.

A rainbow, which doesn’t exist in any particular part of the sky, is an intangible interaction between the natural world and our eyes and brains. No two people see or experience the same rainbow in their mind’s eye.

While there is a tension between poetry/beauty and science/physics, that unease shouldn’t destroy the wonder (“magic”) of the rainbow vis-à-vis its technical side (“math/geometry/science”). More often than not, science helps us better appreciate nature’s beauty.

The Magic and Math of Rainbows

Below are four tanka that imperfectly capture the many perspectives on a rainbow.

That God established the rainbow as the sign of His covenant with Noah (and all living creatures) after the flood comes from Genesis 9:13:

“I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

Nearby verses (12, 15–16) reveal that God promises never again to destroy all life on earth with a flood.

The rainbow serves as the visible sign and token of that covenant and reminds Him of His promise.

Poetically & wonderfully yours

MAGA Pi

March 14, 2025Mathematical Humor, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, TheomaticsBible, DOGE, DOGE math, holy pi, MAGA math, Pi Day, pi education, pi haiku, pi membership, pi poetry, pi royalty, piku, poetry, tau, Trump, Trumpism, US MathKow-Cheong Yan

Happy Pi Day! On this important day in the mathematics calendar for millions of folks, geeky or not, how can we take a short break from all the daily negative news affecting tens of thousands of people in TrumpLand (and soon probably millions of workers in other parts of the world), thanks to a felon’s yo-yo tariffs and Elon’s DOGE cuts?

In the aftermath of this week’s mass layoffs at the Department of Education, with nearly half of the staff, or about 1,300 employees, being notified that they’d be terminated in three months, how many local and foreign-born math educators would be affected by this “unlawful” plan by the “anointed or chosen one”?

To keep mathematically and emotionally sane, what about poking fun at the “very stable genius” felon-president, by composing some pikus (or pi-related haikus) on this beloved math day?

Below are five pikus that leverage on the history of π and Trump’s idiocies and idiosyncrasies.

π Club Membership

genius.com: The Pi Song (100 Digits of π)

Trump failed to recite
A hundred digits of π.
Pi Club: “Try again!”

Monetizing π

Trump wants to trademark
π to earn some royalty.
Math geeks up in arms.

Holy π

Holy votes demand
An executive order
For π to be three*.

* 1 Kings 7:23 & 2 Chronicles 4:2

π = 22/7

Art from Edel Rodriguez @edelstudio on 7/2/24

Thus decreed King Trump:
“Thou shalt make π rational!”
Tariffs for sinners.

The Tau Manifesto

Trump wants to dump π.
It’s an unnatural choice.
Tau as the new pi.

Piku-fully yours

How Is Your Mathematical Journey?

January 26, 2025Humor, Math Publishing, Recreational Math, Singapore Mathart, avocation, career, coaching, creativity, dream, excuses, freedom, goal, poetry, publishing, purpose, time, vocation, volunteering, writingKow-Cheong Yan

Does your mathematical journey so far look like one that is anything but a straight line? Welcome to the club!

Not just to think out of the box, we often need to be (forcefully) thrown out of our cubicle if we truly want to be creative (or positively destructive).

It’s not easy to step out of our comfort zone, but it’s far better than living our mathematical life in a box, or under a half-witted boss or inept HOD.

Are we prepared to live differently from the way the Ministry of Education or the school or the publisher wants you to work? Each of these places doesn’t want you to rock the boat.

Are you still waiting until you got time to start working on that manuscript or time to read those math classics or bestsellers you’d have already read—if you wait for the (right?) time, the chances that you’ll never do it.

Long to indulge in some math poetry? Or volunteer as a math tutor in your community? Or set up that math clinic to help symbols-phobic sufferers by educating them that math is more psychological than logical? What’s preventing you? Family? Gym? Your daily dose of Nexflix or LinkedIn news?

Live your [mathematical] life the way you want to be lived rather than live it the way others want you to live it. Don’t wait for permission—it’ll never come.

Maybe we can all learn a thing or two from “chosen & anointed” Trump: Disrupt, dismiss, and destroy—in the positive sense!

It’s never too late to be an odd in a sea of evens!

Purposefully yours

Adult Math Goes Poetic

May 20, 2024Humor, Mathematical Humor, Recreational Math, Singapore Math2016 election, adultery, affair, business records, cheats, college calculus, crime, Delta, denial, epsilon, epsilon-delta, fake math, falsification, function, haiku, hush money, infidelity, lawsuit, liars, lies, MAGA math, math meme, mathematical verse, payment, poetry, prison, prosecution witness, pseudonym, real analysis, trial, US politicsKow-Cheong Yan

Ex-president Trump’s criminal hush-money trial in New York provides much fodder for comedians and political pundits, not to say, math educators and poets, to poke fun at the lasagna of lies exposed by the prosecution and defense teams.

Below is a math meme that was X-ed, when the ex-Commander in Cheat’s defense lawyer was cross-examining his “ex-fixer” in the court case.

Political Math: When two serial liars failed to convince a jury of recreational math educators from the “fine” city of Singapore that they’d be exempted from a mock high school test paper.

5G Dishonesty

Thanks to Mr. Pinocchio and his once-most-loyal lawyer, who said he’d take a bullet for his ex-client, even math teachers and writers (and pseudo-poets) around the globe couldn’t resist from indulging in some poetic licence.

A Tale of Two Liars

One lied n times, but repented at the (n+1)th time.
The other keeps lying for the nⁿth time.

Once, they’re lying buddies.
Now, they’re lying enemies.

The seasoned liar served his time.
The serial liar will serve his soon.

Below is a haiku that was hatched in the aftermath of the revelation that pseudonyms were contractually used in the hush money payment.

The Fart of the Deal

Dennison denied
having fun with Peterson.
Even Satan laughed.

X-Rated Calculus

Another “adult math” meme that was tweeted to irreverently expose the ex-president’s constant denial of his affair with a former porn star is the following:

Political Calculus: The Real Analysis of the Trump-Daniels Affair. Meme posted by Shivam Kr (Jan. 28, 2022) to the “Mathematical Mathematics Memes” page.

More MAGA Haikus

Let’s end with four haikus based on the duo’s decades-long manifold lies.

The Hush-Money Case

Your lies tickle us.
“Election interference”?
It’s not—it’s jail time.

L___I___A___R___S

The bigly liar
and his ex-“fixer,” who’s jailed,
but he’s still free.

They praised each other,
but they each deserve jail time
for their lies and crimes.

Among loyalists,
he pardoned some jailed buddies,
not his loyal “friend.”

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Tag Archives: poetry

Airline Logic

Math is a young woman’s game too

The Magic and Math of Rainbows

The Magic and Math of Rainbows

MAGA Pi

How Is Your Mathematical Journey?

Adult Math Goes Poetic