{"product_id":"9781943826407","title":"Ode to Numbers","description":"\u003cp\u003eBecause Sarah Glaz sees “a streak of mathematics in almost everything,” this book of poems is a work of alchemy. Light rays in the sky, lines of gold, become x and y axes. The square root of 2 becomes a symbol of the irrationality that drove her family from Romania to Israel. Small stones stand for the calculus (in Latin) and the integral sign is a snake (in Leibnizian). The transcendental number e covers three pages laced with equations, first appearing as a pirate, then Euler’s namesake, then a peacock’s tail and finally a poetic star. Logic proves its own inability to prove with cymbals and umlauts. The precious fruit of labor is both a baby and a theorem, depending. The fabric of the universe is algebraic; lemmas are blue, corollaries orange, theorems purple. The poet’s backpack is full of theorems, and commutative rings grow in her garden instead of weeds. A ghazal utters a gazelle, water becomes wavelets, and sunshine weaves the Golden Ratio into everything it covers. Train tracks converge at infinity, defying Euclid’s Fifth Postulate. Don’t miss these transformations!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEmily Grosholz, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eState University; author of \u003cem\u003eThe Stars of Earth, New and Selected Poems\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese poems tell Sarah Glaz’s story, from childhood in Bucharest to her mathematical life in Israel and the US. Surprising, rich and complex, they invite us to a journey through letters and numbers, with an ever-curious mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhilip Holmes, Eugene Higgins Professor Emeritus of Mechanical and\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAerospace Engineering and Applied and Computational Mathematics,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrinceton University; author of \u003cem\u003eLighting the Steps: Poems 1985 – 2001\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis eloquent collection twines the history of mathematics with the story of a woman mathematician – the patterns, travels, discoveries that shape her life. Sarah Glaz deftly explores the dance between numbers and letters, and between the joy of “proof” and the inevitable limits to certainty. In such expert hands, the language of math and the language of life reflect each other beautifully.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlice Major, Recipient of Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArtist Award; author of \u003cem\u003eStandard Candles\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eIntersecting Sets: A Poet \u003cp\u003eLooks at Science.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePoetry is the most intimate voice we have and Mathematics the most transcendental. In Ode to Numbers these voices sing together wonderfully.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarry Mazur, Gerhard Gade University Professor, Harvard University;\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eauthor of \u003cem\u003eImagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen)\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Antrim House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50264612405488,"sku":"9781943826407","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781943826407","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}