So I went to see Lucy Kaplansky perform last night. She has been around the folk scene since the 70's but I first came across her when she did a track on that excellent 60th birthday tribute to Bob Dylan, A Nod to Bob.
Anyway, she was talking a lot about family and it turns out her father, Irving Kaplansky, was a relatively significant mathematician - chair of the Maths Department at the University of Chicago. He was also a somewhat accomplished musician who, among other things, wrote a song using the first 14 digits of Pi for the melody (mi, do, fa, re, etc)- she sang it - it didn't sound bad. He also invented an mnemonic for the first 15 digits of Pi, namely - "Boy, I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after all those lectures involving quantum mechanics". The number of letters in each word corresponding to a digit of Pi - 3.14159265358979.
Why I should find that interesting is a testament to the sad state of my life.
1 comment:
I'd LOVE to see her, Steve...she's a favorite of mine. Bob Harris gives her music a lot of exposure on Radio 2. Does that mean she has a new CD out?
By the way, I find the story about the "Pi" song very interesting. John will also. We join you in the state of Sad.
Janet
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