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Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications

Product ID: 99817
Supplementary Print
Undergraduate
High School

Math for Poets (UMAP)

Author: Rachel Wells Hall


This Module presents musical and mathematical topics in a general education mathematics course entitled "Sounding Number: Music and Mathematics from Ancient to Modern Times." Music has many connections to mathematics. The Greeks discovered that chords with a pleasing sound are related to simple ratios of integers. It is less well known that the rhythms of music and poetry have been studied mathematically. In ancient India, scholars first discovered Pascal's triangle and the Fibonacci numbers in the rhythms of poetry. This Module explores some mathematics related to rhythm in poetry and music, with extensions to mathematical topics such as binary codes and de Bruijn sequences. Exercises, worksheets, quizzes, and sample exam questions are included.

©2020 by COMAP, Inc.
UMAP Module
32 pages

Mathematics Topics:

Discrete & Finite Mathematics, Liberal Arts Math, Combinatorics

Application Areas:

Arts & Music, Poetry, Music, Culture of India

Prerequisites:

None.

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