I am taking the liberty of reproducing here on this blog a poem he read on Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 two years ago. Tennis champions get plenty of publicity; would that the same could be said of our champion mathematicians.
Sonnet celebrating the elegance, ingenuity and sheer cerebral power of Darren Crowdy’s creative use of Schottky Groups to complete the Schwarz-Christoffel formula so that it works with irregular shapes and those with holes.
You’re clever, you. Far out. You’re way out there
Beyond the bozone layer where we reside
You plot the line fantastic in the air
Where Ancient Greek and Modern Geek collide
You do Jazz Geometry – it can’t be taught –
Express yourself in dancing neuro-glyphs
Placing in brackets things that can’t be taught
Then multiplying by their absent widths
You’re out there where the holy grail or chalice is
Where masthmatics like me can hardly breathe
Then with applied complex analysis
You bring it down to Earth – just for a wheeze
You’re far out. So far out. And so, so clever
Yet when you say Eureka! we say Whatever…
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A mathematician named Darren
A mathematician named Darren
