The main (indeed, only!) theorem in my article "A Galois Connection in the Social Network" (Math. Mag. 85, No. 1, 34-36 (2012); http://jamespropp.org/galois.pdf) was written to be sung to the tune of "The Irish Washerwoman": (Oh,) the people who know all the people who know all the people you know all are people you know and the people you know all are people who know all the people who know all the people you know. However, the proof that I give is a traditional proof (not a musical one). Jim Propp On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 8:44 PM, Andy Latto <andy.latto@pobox.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 6:55 PM, Adam P. Goucher <apgoucher@gmx.com> wrote:
Any other examples of novel presentations of mathematical ideas?
Kevin Wald's presentation of a proof of the irrationality of Pi, set to a possibly familiar tune:
http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~wald/lit/pi_proof.txt
He also had a crossword in the Mathematical Intelligencer that proved the irrationality of Phi. Several of the clues are "first part of the proof", "second part of the proof", etc. The clever thing is that the crossword requires a diagram, as they generally do, and the proof requires a diagram, as they often do, but it turns out to be the same diagram!
Andy Latto
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