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Fibs - Fibonacci-based Poetry

Posted by CowboyNeal on Fri Apr 07, 2006 02:17 AM
from the nerdy-haiku dept.
Math It's funny. Laugh.
Gregory K. writes "April is National Poetry Month (and, it turns out, Math Awareness Month), and on my blog, I decided to get people writing poetry based on the Fibonacci sequence. The poems are six lines, 20 syllables long with the syllable pattern 1/1/2/3/5/8, though they can go longer, obviously. I've been calling 'em Fibs, and people have been writing them on pop culture, politics, math, and more."
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  • First Post! (Score:5, Funny)

    by afaik_ianal (918433) * on Friday April 07 2006, @02:18AM (#15082583)
    First
    Post!
    I bet
    nobody
    can beat me to it
    with a Fibonacci poem!

  • Seen elsewhere... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Skreems (598317) on Friday April 07 2006, @02:25AM (#15082601)
    Not to take away from this poster's message, but this has been done elsewhere as well. The lyrics to Tool's song "Lateralus" are written in Fibonacci rhythm (I think up to 13).
    • See also MC Paul Barman [wikipedia.org]'s Paullelujah! album.

    • Re:Seen elsewhere... (Score:5, Informative)

      by CRCulver (715279) <crculver@christopherculver.com> on Friday April 07 2006, @02:59AM (#15082698) Homepage
      Tool is rather late on the bandwagon. The composer Sofia Gubaidulina [bbc.co.uk] made wide use of the Fibbonaci sequence in the 1980s, happy to find a way of systemization that still allowed the form to "breathe". Her 1986 symphony "Stimmen... Verstummen... [amazon.com]" is a notable example: the length of its movements grow ever shorter according to the sequence. In the 9th movement is a conductor's "solo", where he motions before a silent orchestra, the distance between his hands growing ever larger according to the sequence. In the 1990s she began using the Lucas and Evanglist series as well, whose aesthetic imperfection alongside the divine harmony of the Fibonacci sequence makes tantalizing listening. See V. Tsenova's thesis Zahlenmystik in der Music von Sofia Gubaidulina [amazon.com] for a musicological analysis.

      That's only one example. Per Norgard [pernoergaard.dk] may be mentioned as well, his third symphony abounds in Golden Section references. And, as others is well known, Bartok used the sequence heavily in his work.

    • For You Tool Fans (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ras_b (193300) on Friday April 07 2006, @08:09AM (#15083447)
      I copied the following directly from this website [bofe.org] which has an interesting analysis of tool's lateralus album.
      There's a Fibonacci in Maynard's lyrics, specifically the syllables:

        black [1]
        then [1]
        white are [2]
        all I see [3]
        in my infancy [5]
        red and yellow then came to be [8]
        reaching out to me [5]
        lets me see [3]
        there is [2]
        so [1]
        much [1]
        more and [2]
        beckons me [3]
        to look through to these [5]
        infinite possibilities [8]
        as below so above and beyond I imagine [13]
        drawn outside the lines of reason [8]
        push the envelope [5]
        watch it bend [3]

        I suppose it's not actually a true Fibonacci, since it does reverse itself.
  • Some of the Fibs in the comments are astounding. So what about Prime's
    A short
    Poem with
    Prime syllables is
    Just as beautiful as the
    Fib. But don't hold your breath for more in this one!
    ... or pi's
    I eat pie
    .
    Please...
    Blueberry
    Pie...
    It's my favorite.

  • Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Perdo (151843) on Friday April 07 2006, @02:39AM (#15082639) Homepage Journal
    aich
    tee
    tee pee
    colon slash slash
    slash dot dot org poem

    I
    Wait
    For The
    Beowulf Hot
    Natalie Grits Goatse
    Signal Eleven Penis Bird

  • Poem (Score:5, Funny)

    by neoshroom (324937) on Friday April 07 2006, @02:45AM (#15082654) Homepage
    Math,
    Makes,
    My head,
    Quake with pain.
    Writing a poem based
    On Fibonacci does the same.

    • Re:Poem (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2006, @07:14AM (#15083257)
      Is it just me, or are all these fibs a little Shatneresque?

  • Damn (Score:5, Funny)

    by abscissa (136568) on Friday April 07 2006, @02:50AM (#15082671)
    Damn!
    This
    Will be
    Tough for the
    Mods, if they count all
    the syllables in every post!

  • Fibonacci (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zog The Undeniable (632031) on Friday April 07 2006, @02:57AM (#15082690)
    Did
    You
    Know That
    The Sequence
    Originally
    Described The Humping Of Rabbits?
    • Respect, you just made my morning :)
      • It's not the number of individual rabbits, it's the number of pairs. From Wikipedia:

        In the West, [the Fibonacci sequence] was first studied by Leonardo of Pisa, who was also known as Fibonacci (c. 1200), to describe the growth of an idealised (although biologically unrealistic) rabbit population. The numbers describe the number of pairs in the rabbit population after n months if it is assumed that:

        in the first month there is just one newly-born pair, new-born pairs become fertile from their second mont

  • to 21 (Score:3, Funny)

    by fithmo (854772) on Friday April 07 2006, @02:58AM (#15082693)

    deb
    i
    compiz
    wtf
    compile mother bitch
    and something about the seasons
    no, wait, i am probably thinking about haiku
    damn this package! it has me all confused to the point that i can't even write a poem.

  • It is obligatory at this point to mention that the band Tool (very heavy, but not simple music) used this technique in the song Lateralus [songfacts.com].
    • Tool's music is mind-numbingly simplistic compared to the art music composers who have used the Fibonacci sequence in their work (Gubaidulina, Xenakis, Bartok, Norgard, etc.). Tool's music sticks to rock rhythms and chord structures, doesn't use all twelve tones of the chromatic scale as has been encouraged since Schoenberg, and uses the same limited instrumentation as most rock (Carey's versatile drum kit doesn't compensate for the same-old same-oldness of the rest of the band).
      • "doesn't use all twelve tones of the chromatic scale as has been encouraged since Schoenberg"

        But on the other hand, I actually enjoy listening to Tool.
          • I'm kind of glad that taking four years of theory and composition classes didn't cripple my ability to enjoy rock music. And I'm not sure why you're so hung up on counting the number of tones used... hardly a measure of a piece of musics complexity or worth.
              • "The number of tones has a lot to do with the complexity of a work, since the most complex work will necessarily be that which doesn't use any tone until it has used the other eleven."

                This is manifestly, mathematicly false on so many levels that it's not surprising you got modded troll. ^_^

                As far as Tool's music, what you're perhaps missing is that all the complexity lies in the rythmic space, not the melodic or harmonic.
          • Forget your missing five tones.

            There is only one rule about music, and it's a subjective rule. That rule is that the music must sound good.

            If people find Tool sounds good, then it is good (to them at least) regardless of whether music snobs are whining that it is missing five tones. Part of music is not necessarily being too much. For example, many people love blues yet much of it only uses three chords and a pentatonic scale. It doesn't make it anything less - to those who love that kind of music, it obeys

            • There is only one rule about music, and it's a subjective rule. That rule is that the music must sound good.

              No, the only rule about music is that it must be complex, not that it has to sound good or bad. I'll repeat Xenakis' statement from Musiques formelles:

              Le son beau ou laid n'a pais de sens, ni la musiqe qui en découle; la quantité d'intelligence portée par les sonorités doit être le vrai critère de validité de telle ou telle musique.

              (The concept of "beautiful" o

      • Tool's music sticks to rock rhythms

        Actually, that's not entirely accurate... I really don't like Tool much at all, but one thing I found unique about them was that a lot of their songs don't use the traditional 4/4 (drumBASSdrumBASSdrumBASS) type rhythm. Don't they have some tunes in 9/8?

        Considering just about every rock song that comes out anymore sounds exactly like every other, a break from the 4/4 rock beat is noteworthy. Of course, all of my exposure to Tool at all comes from years ago...
  • OH boy, I can see a law suit here from the First Internet Backgammon Server guys! Although as long as The fibonacci guys stay away from music they'll be fine... oh wait....

  • Fibonacci pineapples. 9 liner. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gihan_ripper (785510) on Friday April 07 2006, @03:41AM (#15082801) Homepage
    01 It
    01 is
    02 really
    03 not taxing
    05 to create a Fib,
    08 but still they are interesting
    13 sequences of numbers. We are familiar with
    21 the 'rabbit generation' origins of the sequence, but it can also describe
    34 the number of petals on a flower, or the number of curves on a sunflower head, on a pineapple, or even on a pinecone.

  • Cutting it off at the pass (Score:5, Informative)

    by BinaryOpty (736955) on Friday April 07 2006, @04:12AM (#15082861)
    Before anyone else does a "OMG Tool did it first!!" and then someone responds to them with "No, [insert older reference here] did it first!", the blog author acknowledges this in his post (linked to in the first, longer link). I quote:
    and, as much as I'd like to say I invented a new form of poetry, these sequences have been part of various poetic structures since before Fibonacci's time.
    As such, now anyone who brings up the Tool/etc thing in such a way that they're implying the blog author is claiming credit for inventing this can be marked a troll.
  • Hey!
    Funny
    Most fibs
    I have seen
    are about the fibs.

  • Palindrome version (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chapter80 (926879) on Friday April 07 2006, @06:19AM (#15083101)
    Palindrome version. (It's early, best I could do...)


    God,
    all!
    It's fib,
    version A.
    Edit idea...
    No! Is rev B, if still a dog.

  • Must... stop... fibbing (Score:4, Funny)

    by mrogers (85392) on Friday April 07 2006, @06:28AM (#15083125) Homepage
    Unfortunately no matter what the subject matter, the poems sound like they're being spoken by a superhero through gritted teeth.

    Must...
    stop...
    fibbing!
    Got to get...
    back to my haikus!
    So many syllables... wasted!

  • Conformity (Score:4, Funny)

    by Limbo Socrates (923585) on Friday April 07 2006, @08:09AM (#15083451)
    Ugh.
    Rules.
    Structure.
    Makes me wince.
    Perhaps I should try...
    Running around naked with my hair on fire screaming, "ANARCHY! ANARCHY! Take that Fibonacci, you wiper of other peoples bottoms! go away and I shall taunt you no more!"

  • Math is everywhere you look (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hey! (33014) on Friday April 07 2006, @08:16AM (#15083486) Homepage Journal
    For example, consider the famous poem "The Tiger" by William Blake:

    TIGER, tiger, burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

    If you read this alound (or at least subvocalize), you'll see a patern, and patterns in my opinion are quintessentially mathematical:

    TIGer/TIGer/BURNing/BRIGHT */
    IN the / FORests /OF the /NIGHT */
    WHAT im/MORtal / HAND or/ EYE */
    could FRAME / thy FEAR/ful SYM/meTRY?

    What makes this pattern interesting is not what it is, but what it is not. It's like you can hear a quantum entanglement with the poem it is not, but easily might have been. A lesser poet would have written: "TIGer, TIGer, BURNing BRIGHTly", which would be a metrical form called "trochaic quadrameter". A trochee is a two syllbale unit (or "foot") with stress on the first syllable (like this: dah DUM), as opposed to an iamb which stressed the second (va VOOM).
    Hiwawatha is an example of trochaic quadrameter:

    By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
    By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
    Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
    Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

    Four footed forms are very solid and predictable, but are seldom chosen by profesional poets because they quickly become monotonous and susceptible to parody, as in this excerpt of a Geroge Strong's lampoon of Hiawatha:

    He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
    Of the skin he made him mittens,
    Made them with the fur side inside,
    Made them with the skin side outside.
    He, to get the warm side inside,
    Put the inside skin side outside.
    He, to get the cold side outside,
    Put the warm side fur side inside.
    That's why he put the fur side inside,
    Why he put the skin side outside,
    Why he turned them inside outside.


    Tiger's unusual and broken meter gives it a haunting feeling (haunted by the missing syllables?) that fits its subject perfectly.

    Getting to the subject of the article, efforts like this are often successful at getting people who are interested in poetry to try their hands at it. I think in part because it's so easy to be write bad poetry, it's helpful to have the safety net of a highy arbitrary form to fall back on: after all, what can you expect given the restrictions? The 5-7-5 structure of Haiku is also popular for the same purposes and reasons.

    I wonder whether a similar effort could be made using patterns in scansion, like in "Tiger". Maybe you could create a set of rules encoding messages in stress and rhyme, and then set out a task to "encrypt" a message as verse.

  • Starting with a different number (Score:3, Funny)

    by Flyboy Connor (741764) on Friday April 07 2006, @11:37AM (#15085199)
    You can start Fibonacci sequences with a different number.

    Here's a fib that starts with zero:

    • Stoppit! This isn't Digg!!!!!!

      But yeah, personal blog self-promotion - uber lame.

      -Jar

    • Surprised no one came up with this: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Chapter80 (926879) on Friday April 07 2006, @08:12AM (#15083465)
      Here's a Python program written in a fib...


      try:
      ....foo
      except:
      ....print "Display"
      ....print "Fibonacci"
      ....count = prevcount = 1
      ....while prevcount <= 7000:
      ........print prevcount ; count, prevcount = count + prevcount, count

      The way *I* read the program (pronouncing each special character except for the quotes and colons), it's a fib. AND it does something useful. It displays the first twenty Fibonacci numbers!

      Pronounced:
      (1) try
      (1) foo
      (2) ex cept
      (3) print dis play
      (5) print fib on ac ci
      (8) count e quals prev count e quals one
      (13) while prev count less than or e qual to sev en thou sand
      (21) print prev count sem i col on count com ma prev count e quals count plus prev count com ma count

      Now that's *real* nerdy. Geeks should be proud.

    • Another try... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Chapter80 (926879) on Friday April 07 2006, @08:32AM (#15083578)
      OK, now I am addicted.


      One.
      One.
      Then Two.
      Three is next.
      Five, of course, comes next.
      Then Eight. It's getting hard to do.
      Next is 1D. We're counting in Hex - this is slashdot!

      Gotta love the surprise ending!

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