Mary Button / Ode to Misunderstood Mathematicians

Mary Button is a hipster math professor and mathemagician who doesn't like being called a hipster. In this spoken word piece, she discusses some of her favorite things: Euler, Pythagoras and James Garfield (so dreamy!).

Ode to Misunderstood Mathematicians
At first glance, I may look like your typical hipster
Living in my Park Slope brownstone
Strutting down 5th Avenue in my too-large-for-my-face sunglasses
Slinging a Strand Bookstores bag
Wearing skinny jeans and a Threadless shirt
Shopping at Beacon’s Closet
Buying “vintage” clothing for twice the price of brand new clothes
Yes I may look like your typical hipster

But you are mistaken!
Because I am so much more than that.
I am a math professor.
And I dream of Euler, the famous Swiss mathematician.
He was prolific, intelligent, ambitious—handsome.
He figured out that e^iπ + 1 = 0.
Only such a brilliant man could understand that
A transcendental number raised to an imaginary number could equal a real number.

And did you know the 20th president of the United States
Found an ingenious way to solve the Pythagorean Theorem?
Pythagoras had said, “Given a right triangle with sides a, b, c,
A squared plus b squared equals c squared.”
And our man James Garfield used a trapezoid to solve it!
This is why I spend my days at the Tea Lounge:
To solve theorems so that maybe one day, I can be a household name like
Garfield, Pythagoras, Euler

But so what if I hang out at the Tea Lounge?
Does that automatically make me a hipster?
Everyone minds their own business here
No one cares if I spend two hours there
And only purchase one measly cup of iced chai
No one cares if I spend the majority of that time
Solving theorems on paper napkins

You can call me whatever you want
But here’s the truth: my heart lies in math
In the beauty of binary numbers,
In the calisthenics of calculus,
In the greatness of graph theory
And what else could I do with my love of math
But spread my knowledge to young children?

By day, I am a math professor
And by night—well, I mean day, because kids go to school
In the daytime, too—
I am a mathemagician!
I inspire students to learn their multiplication tables
I show them why I know what 64 squared is
Without skipping a beat.
And I show them Garfield’s awesome proof of that all-important theorem:
A squared plus B squared = C squared.

Take a right trapezoid with parallel sides with lengths (a) and (b), and a height of (a+b)
Drop two lines of the same length (c) to the side with length (a+b)
So that there are two right triangles with sides a,b,c
And an isosceles right triangle with two sides of length (c)
The area of the trapezoid, which is, by definition,
[(a+b)^2]/2,
Is equal to the area of the three right triangles that make up the trapezoid
Therefore, [(a+b)^2]/2 = 2*(ab)/2 + (c^2)/2
Which equals a^2 + b^2 = c^2
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Thus it is demonstrated

So don’t call me a hipster
Because no hipster knows Euler like I do,
No hipster knows non-Euclidean geometry like I do,
No—only a mathematician like myself
Knows all this.
Q.E.D.

Mary Button is a mathematician living in Park Slope. She enjoys proving math theorems in her spare time, and she works part-time as a mathemagician. She dabbles in spoken word poetry and does not like to be called a hipster.

At first glance, I may look like your typical hipster
Living in my Park Slope brownstone
Which I moved into five years ago, when gentrification was in
Strutting down 5th Avenue in my too-large-for-my-face sunglasses
Slinging a Strand Bookstores bag
Wearing skinny jeans and a Threadless shirt
Shopping at Beacon’s Closet
Buying “vintage” clothing for twice the price of fresh, new clothing
Yes I may look like your typical hipster

But you are mistaken!
Oh, I am so much more than that.
I am a math professor. I went to Harvey Mudd.
I dream of Euler, the famous Swiss mathematician.
Prolific, intelligent, ambitious—handsome.
e^iπ + 1 = 0; a transcendental number raised to an imaginary number equals a real number.

And I solve theorems in my spare time.
Did you know the 20th president of the United States
Found an ingenious way to solve the Pythagorean Theorem?
Pythagoras had said, “Given a right triangle with sides a, b, c,
A squared plus b squared equals c squared.”
And our man James Garfield used a trapezoid to solve it!
Maybe one day I can be a household name like
Euler and Garfield and Pythagoras
This why I hang out at the Tea Lounge:
To solve theorems

But so what if I hang out at the Tea Lounge?
Does that automatically make me a hipster?
I like their coffee. Their employees are cute and the music is good
And the place is as comfy as Eric Forman’s basement.
No one cares if I spend two hours there
And have only purchased one measly cup of iced chai
No one cares if I spend the majority of that time
Solving theorems on paper napkins
Everyone’s minding their own business.
Who wouldn’t love a place like that?

You can call me whatever you want
But here’s the truth: my heart lies in math
In the beauty of binary numbers,
In the calisthenics of calculus,
In the greatness of graph theory
And what else could I do with my love of math
But spread it to young children?

By day, I am a math professor
And by night—well, I mean day, because kids go to school
In the daytime, too—I am a mathemagician!
I inspire students to learn their multiplication tables
And I teach them about number oddities.
I show them why I know what 64 squared is
Without skipping a beat.
I show them how to have fun on their graphing calculators
And I show them Garfield’s awesome proof of that all-important theorem:
A squared plus B squared = C squared.

Take a trapezoid with parallel sides with lengths (a) and (b), and a height of (a+b)
Drop two lines of the same length (c) to the side with length (a+b)
So that there are two right triangles with sides a,b,c
And an isosceles right triangle with two sides of length (c)
The area of the trapezoid, which is, by definition,
[(a+b)^2]/2,
Is equal to the area of the three right triangles that make up the trapezoid
Therefore, [(a+b)^2]/2 = 2*(ab)/2 + (c^2)/2
Which equals a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Quod Erat Demonstrandum (yeah)
So don’t call me a hipster
Because no hipster knows Euler like I do,
No hipster knows non-Euclidean geometry like I do,
No—only a mathematician like me
Knows all this.
Q. E. D.

Five heart-shaped palm fronds line the right-hand wall. They waft back and forth laboriously, and they are trimmed with steel. They move at the speed of Miss America's waving hand, too slow to actually serve any real purpose. And they don't really fit with the rest of the decor of the place—but then again, nothing really goes together here. Everything seems strewn together. Small, wooden star-shaped tables line the right-hand side wall, under the palm fronds. Those with laptops (mostly Macs) make a beeline to these tables, where they can sit on a raised platform with gross, not-so-fluffy-anymore pillows (you know, the kind that's been totally worn out by the hundreds of asses it has had to accommodate over the years) for cushions. The Tea Lounge is fairly spacious. Couches and kitschy lamps are strewn about the cafe, and Led Zeppelin blazes from the speakers (it's a bit too loud for my taste, as I usually go there to solve math problems on stray napkins). There's something very relaxing about this place. The couches are very worn, and you can't help but sink into them. Many of the furniture pieces look like they are parts of incomplete sets. Everything seems very random, like the owners just asked their friends for spare furniture and this is what evolved. This is a place for people who enjoy good coffee, for people who want free Internet service and for people who just want to laze around, listen to good music, read. This is a place for hip math professors. This is a place for me.

I remember it like it was yesterday, though it was over 15 years ago. I begged my mother to bring me to Radioshack. None of the local stores carried it so we had to drive out to the city and get it from Radioshack. Mom never liked this store, though. She was old-fashioned, didn’t want to handle new technology, which was strange and foreign to her. And she had set it in her mind that Radioshack employees made a habit of stealing everyone’s credit card information and selling it to Internet mavericks.

But me? I loved Radioshack. Once a month, I would take the bus out there and test-drive their newest gadgets. I still do that sometimes; after a long day at school, I’ll stop by J&R, near City Hall, and check out their new electronics.

When I was 15, I bought my first graphing calculator. I had saved up for it all summer. I worked at the local record store as their deejay (which is where I found my love for jazz—but that’s another story). By the end of the two-month vacation, I had made enough money for the most advanced Texas instrument at the time: the TI-39.

Even though it was required for my math classes (even back then, I was always a math geek—by 9th grade, I was already learning calculus), my mother refused to chip in for this most precious of school supplies.

“Whaddaya (whaddaya) need this calculator for? Can’t you use your head? Don’t you known your multiplication tables?” she hollered.

I replied, “Shh! Mom, you’re making a scene.” I’d inch away from her ever so slightly, embarrassed that my mother could be so ignorant about technology.

I cradled the bulky little gadget in my hand as if it were a baby. And when I got to the register, Larry Z. was there. He smiled when he saw me. I would have never guessed it then, but Larry would one day leave his position as manager here at Radioshack to become a high school math teacher. Years later, he would find a new, shorter proof—it would seem that he would become a specialist in finding shorter proofs to difficult theorems—to solve the famous Shoeck Theorem (similar to the way our dear president James Garfield found an ingenious way to use a trapezoid to solve Pythagoras’s Theorem). Larry would then become a professor at Harvey Mudd, which is where I met him again after 5 years and he became my mentor there.

But anyway, that day, he beamed at me and said, “Good morning, Miss Button! How’s our most tech-savvy customer doing today?” He then turned to my mother and said, “You know, your daughter probably knows this store better than my employees!”

My mother did not smile. She turned her lips up in a crooked-smile that came off more like a cringe that seemed to say, “Oh that’s nice—not.”

I ignored my mother’s reaction and said to Larry, “I’m shopping for school supplies.” He took my calculator and placed it gingerly in a paper bag. I dug out all my summer job savings from my jean pocket and put it into his cupped hands.

That calculator got me through some tough times. When precal was moving too slow, I’d play Tetris on my TI-39 to pass the time. When I forgot how to find the inverse of a 3x3 matrix, my TI-39 would show me. The TI-39 was one of the best purchases I had ever made.

So I came across a blog called Angry Asian Man. The Angry Asian Man, as it turns it, isn't a raving lunatic but rather a thoughtful...Asian man. Here's what he had to say about gentrification:

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the future of chinatown?

Here's an interesting from the Christian Science Monitor about the changing face of Chinatowns in cities across the United States, where the increasing value of "hot" urban real estate is making it increasingly difficult for working-class immigrants to survive in their own ethnic enclaves: A land squeeze in America's Chinatowns:

Once a fixture in most major US cities, many Chinatowns have ceased to exist as magnets for new arrivals. San Diego's Chinatown is now a historic district. A coalition in Phoenix is trying to save the last remaining Chinatown structure from becoming a luxury apartment building. Four of the enclaves in the 10 largest cities – in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia – are now commercial areas. Dallas, which never had a historic Chinatown, designated a retail center as "Chinatown" in the 1980s. Other Chinatowns in Seattle, Detroit, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., are today primarily tourist spots.

Gentrification! It's nothing new. With all this urban development happening so rapidly, what will your city's Chinatown look like in, say, ten years? Will it really be Chinatown? And whose Chinatown will it be? If we're not careful, it might just become one gigantic tourist trap (some are already on their way).
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Now, I realize I shouldn't be saying anything as I am a Caucasian hipster who only moved into Park Slope (all the way from Chicago) five years ago. But honestly, I feel for this Angry Asian Man. Gentrification is a terrible thing, especially in New York, where it's hard to rent an apartment for under $1500. Lucky for me, I moved in just when the neighborhood was really starting to gentrify and I managed to snag a pretty sweet brownstone. But nonetheless, I feel for you. As a math professor, I am constantly surrounded by Asians, many of whom, I'm sure, live or have relatives who live in Chinatown. Chinatown, in many ways, is already a tourist trap. Tons of people come to Canal Street to buy the cheap wares (although, only a street savvy woman like myself can haggle with the street vendors...well, that is, if I have my Asian friend Linda with me). Ten years from now, I hope I still see old Chinese grannies blocking up the cramped streets of Chinatown; I hope I can still get delicious watermelon ice bubble tea; I hope I can still buy unbelievably inexpensive fruits and vegetables under the bridge; I hope, when I try to get off the subway at Grand Street, that people will still swarm into the train car without regard to those trying to get off. If this was an American Express commercial, I'd be saying all these memories are priceless.

I ordered tickets online. I rushed to the movie theater an hour early. I wanted to see the fifth Harry Potter movie that badly. I know, I know—what is an intelligent mathematician like me doing watching a movie adaptation of a terribly written, albeit often enticing, children's book? Sure, the first two were absolutely abominable, but I must admit, they have gotten increasingly better and the child actors have also improved. The New York Times film critic A.O. Scott hit all the right points: Alan Rickman (Snape), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) and Evanna Lynch's (Luna Lovegood) acting raised the movie to another level.

But anyway, after the movie, I headed back home to Park Slope with Liz and Dex, with whom I saw HP5. They're also professors at CCNY, specializing in differential equations and multivariate calculus. We stopped by Union Hall for the Secret Science Club. It was very interesting. Eugene Mirman, mainly known as a comedian, was discussing Euler's most famous theorem (e^iπ + 1 = 0) and applying it to nature. Isn't it amazing that raising a transcendental number to an irrational number can yield a rational number? It's just the most unlikeliest thing—and yet Euler figured it out.

I would now like to draw a parallel between Euler and me:

The other day, I met up with Liz and Dex at the Tea Lounge. We all live within walking distance from the hipster cafe, so we often run into each other there. And now that we're all teaching a high school math program at CCNY over the summer, we often hang out afterwards at the lounge and solve math problems. We like to give each other tough theorems to solve, and that day, Dex presented us with a theorem that Larry Z., possibly one of the most intelligent men alive and a former professor of ours when we were all grad students at Harvey Mudd, had shown him recently.

Dex said, "Larry said this is the most challenging theorem he's ever come across. There are only two ways to solve it. One is possibly the longest proof any theorem ever required and the other takes less than a page. I still haven't figured it out yet, but maybe you guys can help me?"

I rubbed my hands together, and snatched the pencil from behind my right ear. We all whipped out our giant composition notebooks and began scratching away. I think, having spent so much time together, Liz, Dex and I essentially started our proofs the same way: using calculus. But as I took a sip of my iced chai (by the way, the Tea Lounge makes delicious chai!), I thought about what Dex said. Suddenly, it dawned on me! Within moments, I had figured out the short proof. Instead of using calculus (derivatives and all that), whose tedious calculations would take forever and would be very susceptible to human error, I used Euler's theorem and some nonlinear algebra.

Like Euler, I reached within the recesses of my mind to find nontraditional ways to solve the problem. At first glance, Larry's theorem seemed to beg for a calculus-aided proof—but upon closer inspection and by thinking about the unlikeliest possibilities, I managed to solve this most challenging theorem. Larry would be proud of me. And, I like to believe, so would Euler.