My original intent was to write a piece about the language of mathematics using poetry: kind of a four-dimensional comment on language. I’d recently attended a weekend writing workshop on poetry at Bard College, and I was inspired to try to convey some of my ideas about the language of mathematics in verse. I worked on it for a while but as I type these words I’m an hour short of the twice-extended deadline for this submission. So I’ve decided to shelve the reluctant poem (for now) and use prose to touch on the power of mathematics as a language.

I believe mathematics is indeed a powerful language. I think many of us forget that mathematical symbols—including numbers—are no more or less than the symbols (letters) we string together to make words and sentences, to communicate our thoughts and feelings, to articulate and illustrate our imaginations. I also think that many of us don’t receive the gift of going past the obligatory math skills we had to learn in school, of walking through that door into the world of imagination and possibility, a door through which mathematics can shine a light.

Eternity...Infinity

A recent lecture I attended included reference to a particular kind of prime number called a Mersenne prime. Mathematicians believe that an infinite number of these Mersenne primes exist, but so far only 44 have been identified. The 43rd Mersenne prime, found in 2005, has over nine million digits. If one were to print the 43rd Mersenne prime in a bound book, that book would be 500-pages long and would take a person a month to recite aloud. A month!

Again: The current belief is that there is an infinite number of these Mersenne primes. Sit and ponder that idea of infinity for a bit. It stretches the boundaries of my mind, that’s for sure. It reminds me of a story I once heard that attempts to convey the idea of eternity. Imagine a ball of soft gold, the story begins, that’s as large as our sun. Now imagine a bird flying by that ball once a year and brushing it with its wing as it flies by. The length of time it would take that ball to dwindle down to nothing from an annual brush of a bird’s wing is only the beginning of eternity (infinity). It does boggle the mind, no?

Mathematics as a language also has a powerful quality that it shares with music and art: that of crossing cultural and language barriers. True, some mathematics symbols are used slightly differently in some cultures. But, in general, a mathematics equation or expression means the same thing to someone whose native language is Mandarin Chinese or American English. This bridging quality of the language of mathematics is the reason I wanted to contribute to this year’s Revisions. When we think about the diversity of cultures and languages that are represented by the student body at Queens College, aren’t we really thinking about ways that those cultures and languages interact with each other, about how our interactions are affected by different cultures and languages, and about how those differences can be honored and bridged?

Well, maybe I’ll be inspired by such thoughts (and hopefully by visiting muses) to find the bridge leading to my wayward verses, perhaps while procrastinating as I study for my next mathematics exam.