Introducing Palindrick
A humorous five-line poem with a rhyme scheme 'aabba' with a palindromic twist.
3 min read
Like the Limerick, the Palindrick has a fixed structure, is usually humorous, but is a bit rigid in its prosodic structure.
A palindrick is a form of verse, usually humorous, in five-line, predominantly anapestic trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and palindrome fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme.
The following example is a palindrick (twist on a limerick of unknown origin):
The limerick packs laughs deepen
Into space that is quite like heaven.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
Never odd or even.
Mad math!
Who says there's no poetry in mathematics?
ThoughtSome of the mathematical limericks I wish to see in palindrick form.
Integral z-squared dz
From 1 to the cube root of 3
Times the cosine
Of three pi over 9
Equals log of the cube root of e.
Note: Before you send me critical emails, I already know that the "log" is "natural log" or "log to the base e". This limerick apparently dates from that period in history when physicists understood the convention that "log" without qualification meant "natural log" and that if any other kind of log was meant, you had to specify its base explicitly in the notation.
I suppose we should include here Mercer's example of how to make a limerick from a number, 1,264,853,971.2758463, or vice versa.
One thousand two hundred and sixty
four million eight hundred and fifty
three thousand nine hun-
dred and seventy one
point two seven five eight four six three.
Classic math limericks
A mathematician confided
That a Möbius strip is one-sided.
You'll get quite a laugh
If you cut it in half.
For it stays in one piece when divided.
A burlycue dancer, a pip
Named Virginia could peel in a zip;
But she read science fiction
And died of constriction
Attempting a Möbius strip.
— Kornbluth (1923-1958), U.S. Writer
More can be found over lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/mayhem.htm
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