The Paradoxism in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Poetry

Abstract

This short article pairs the realms of “Mathematics”, “Philosophy”, and “Poetry”, presenting some corners of intersection of this type of scientocreativity. Poetry have long been following mathematical patterns expressed  by stern formal restrictions, as the strong metrical structure of ancient Greekheroic epic, or the consistent meter  with standardized rhyme scheme and a “volta” of Italian sonnets. Poetry was always connected to Philosophy,  and further on, notable mathematicians, like the inventor of quaternions, William Rowan Hamilton, or Ion  Barbu, the creator of the Barbilian spaces, have written appreciated poems. We will focus here on an avant garde movement in literature, art, philosophy, and science, called Paradoxism, founded in Romania in 1980 by a  mathematician, philosopher and poet, and on the laboured writing exercises of the Oulipo group, founded in  Paris in 1960 by mathematicians and poets, both of them still in act.