{"id":5488,"date":"2010-12-31T18:41:15","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T23:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2010-12-31T18:41:15","modified_gmt":"2010-12-31T23:41:15","slug":"response-to-a-mathematicians-lament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=5488","title":{"rendered":"Response to “A Mathematician’s Lament”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A poem in response to Paul Lockhart’s “A Mathematician’s Lament”<\/a>, inspired by the mathematical doodles of Vi Hart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\nInside a box a triangle sits,
\nSomewhere, perhaps in your mind’s eye,
\nWide as the box, and just as high.
\nIn short, the triangle barely fits.<\/i><\/p>\n		\"t0\"
\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nWhat will the triangle’s area be?
\nA quarter of the box? Or maybe a third?
\nMore than the box? No, that’s absurd.
\nHmm, there’s a game here, you can see.<\/i><\/p>\n		\"t1\"
\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nA curious game — but how to play?
\nMaybe you should draw a line.
\nTo split the triangle, that looks fine,
\nFrom top to bottom, all the way.<\/i><\/p>\n		\"t2\"
\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nNow two boxes sit astride
\nWhere there had only been just one.
\nTwice the shapes means twice the fun!
\nAnd each contains more shapes inside.<\/i><\/p>\n		\"t2b\"
\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nThe leftmost box is cut in half –
\nA line is slicing it in two.
\nNow equal shapes jump out at you.
\nIt’s enough to make you laugh.<\/i><\/p>\n		\"t3\"
\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nFor on the right it’s just the same.
\nYour triangle, you can say with pride,
\nTakes half the box’s space inside.
\nIt seems that you have won the game!<\/i><\/p>\n		\"t4\"
\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A poem in response to Paul Lockhart’s “A Mathematician’s Lament”, inspired by the mathematical doodles of Vi Hart. Inside a box a triangle sits, Somewhere, perhaps in your mind’s eye, Wide as the box, and just as high. In short, the triangle barely fits. What will the triangle’s area be? A quarter of the box? … Continue reading “Response to “A Mathematician’s Lament””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5519,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions\/5519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}