Math Limerick Problems
February 25, 2013 at 8:06 pm 6 comments
Albert Einstein said that “pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” That may or may not be true, but all I know is that math poems are pretty awesome.
There are lots of math limericks on the web. One of my favorites:
A topologist’s child was quite hyper,
Till it wore a Möbius diaper.
The mess on the inside
Was thus on the outside,
And it was easy for someone to wipe her.
Fred Tofts, who claims to not be a mathematician but loves mathematics, recently shared a different kind of math limerick with MJ4MF. His five-line creation was not meant to deliver a punch line; rather, it presented a problem. As a comment to my blog interview with Colin Adams, he wrote, “I have not written any math jokes but have written many math limericks,” and then shared the following:
A dog’s at one end of a log;
At the opposite end is a frog.
Six feet from the frog
And eight feet from the dog
Is a right angle. How long’s the log?
I do hope that the good Mr. Tofts will share a few more of his creations with us!
The following is more of a truth than a puzzle, but fun nonetheless.
Pick a number 1 to 9, I plea,
Then multiply by 15,873.
And again times seven,
The product to leaven;
Your number will repeat six times — you’ll see.
Do you have any math limerick problems worth sharing?
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Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: dog, Fred Tofts, frog, limerick, log, math, problem.
1.
Mei Rose | February 26, 2013 at 8:28 am
A dozen, a gross, and a score,
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Equals nine squared and not a bit more.
2.
venneblock | February 26, 2013 at 11:09 pm
Thanks for sharing this one. It gives me an opportunity to set the record straight. This limerick appeared in a Saxon Math textbook, so people often attribute it to John Saxon. But it was actually penned by Leigh Mercer, a London wordplay artist and recreational mathematician. It was published in Games magazine in the 1970’s. He supposedly also created the famous palindrome, “A man, a plan, a canal — Panama!”
3.
Kieros | April 6, 2013 at 12:44 am
There’s another variation to this; replacing the last two lines with “Plus nine times eleven / Equals five cubed…” still holds true.
4.
venneblock | April 6, 2013 at 9:09 pm
Excellent! I hadn’t heard that variation before, Kieros. Thanks for sharing!
5.
Karen Craigs | March 23, 2013 at 9:26 am
The irrational number e
Is the limit of the quantity
One plus one over n
All to the power of n
As n goes to infinity.
…
The irrational number e
This rate occurs naturally
A bank account lifts
As interest adds gifts
This value and rate go nicely!
6.
venneblock | March 23, 2013 at 7:47 pm
Rock on, Karen! Thanks for sharing these.