Limerick
Via MetaFilter:
I thought this was wonderfully clever. Standard limerick form: first, second, and fifth lines are longer, and similar in rhyme and meter; third and fourth lines are shorter, and similar in rhyme and meter. The toughest part is figuring out how the first and last lines rhyme.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Mike? I know it’s like asking someone to explain the punchline of a joke, but I don’t get this limerick. Could you solve the equation and show your work?
Mathematically Challenged,
Joanna
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:02 am
As an example: one line might be, “divided by seven,” and the next might begin, “plus. . .”
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Thanks, Professor Edwards.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Okay, I see how two lines rhyme: “divided by seven” and “five times eleven” but that’s as far as I’m getting and I don’t know if I wanna try any harder.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Bradley’s got it: the third and fourth lines are
and, well, OK, I’ll point out that a synonym for 20 rhymes with “four,” which might indicate that there are other synonyms in the first line, as well — like for 144 and 12.
(And for the last line: what’s a one-syllable word for ‘equals’?)
October 24th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Score! Gross! Dozen!
line one: one dozen, one gross and one score
line two: plus three times the square root of four
line three: divided by seven
line four: plus five times eleven
line five: equals 9 squared and no more!
That must be it! Right?!?!?! It works, I think.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Absolutely right on target, my friend. Perhaps rhythm’s a matter of personal taste — I’m kinda partial to
A dozen, a gross and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.
So yeah, you totally got it. I so totally love the idea of math limericks, and I want to invent some, but I have no idea whatsoever where I’d begin. Does that take a sudoku kind of brain?
What do you think, Joanna?
October 25th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Quote the Howard: “Not a bit more. . . .”
Seriously, I’m impressed with both of you–it’s like you’re bilingual, writing poems with words and numbers.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I didn’t even try to get the meter. I was just trying to make sense of the dang thing. If it takes a sodoku brain to make these things up, don’t call me Will Shortz or however he spells his name. It was quite exciting to get it though. I felt smart!
I didn’t get the one syllable for equals part until now.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:22 am
You get humility points, Brad.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
The really impressive thing is that it does, of course, equate the way it says it does. I could probably string together numbers and mathematical operators into euphonious phrases, but to actually have it be correct…wow.