August 5, 2009

Square root of 3

I am not a big fan of Harold and Kumar movies, but they are OK.
I saw the Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay movie last weekend, I don't want to talk about the movie, but I really liked the poem that Kumar says towards the climax which he wrote long back while working on some calculus problems. I thought it was written for the movie, but actually when I searched for it, I came to know that it was written by David Feinberg, a writer who also happens to be a mathematician.

Here is the peom:

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

-David Feinberg

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