Practical Storytelling
How Paul Hearding used story to become the North American Champion of reciting pi
“Keep showing up.” —Paul Hearding, mathematician, North American Champion of reciting digits of pi
Preview: Episode 105 How to Build a Palace in Your Mind with Paul Hearding
When I think of memorizing, I think of it as the opposite of a creative act—something rote—and yet the more I learned about Paul Hearding and how he used storytelling to memorize over 16,000 digits of pi to become the North American Pi Reciting Champion in 2020, the more impressed I was with how memorization can be a creative act. In this episode, we talk with Hearding about his passion for pi, what he learned about story as a tool, how his storytelling methods evolved (obey the emerging form!), how rhyme became part of his practice, and about creativity in mathematics. Turns out mathematicians need tools for getting unstuck, too!
After receiving his master’s in Mathematics from the University of Delaware and teaching at the college level, Paul Hearding packed up his things and moved West to Telluride, Colorado, where he taught high-school math and science. Paul now runs his own tutoring business, nurturing an appreciation for the art of mathematics in his students. He is actively doing original research in the area of finite fields, researching permutation polynomials, a phenomenon in abstract algebra with applications to the information sciences, particularly cryptology.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
How does faith affect our ability to heal from trauma? In Telling Stories in the Dark, Jeffrey Monroe tells true stories of resilience and hope through a lens of Christian faith. He interviews people who have lived through profound grief, me included and then invites other professionals to add insights about trauma, forgiveness, spiritual insight, and more. It’s a beautiful book that weaves together many stories of sharing sadness and finding our ways forward.
Coming in to Valentine’s Day, I am thinking of poems that honor a lover—poems that see them for who they are and notice how their passions have helped form their identities. I particularly like this poem, Love Poem, with Birds, by Barbara Kingsolver from her book HOW TO FLY (IN TEN THOUSAND EASY LESSONS).
Christie:
Jessica Bennett wrote about the audacity of E. Jean Carroll. She writes that as she watched Donald Trump’s trial New York trial for defaming E. Jean Carroll, “I couldn’t stop thinking that this trial was also about something else: the value of a woman, long past middle age, who dared to claim she indeed still had value. Just how radical was it for Ms. Carroll, 80, to demand that she was worth something?
How do our self-images adjust as we age? Jody Day wrote a lovely essay about turning 60 and struggling to reconcile the woman in the mirror with the woman in her mind’s eye. She writes of discussing her “not my body” experience with a friend, “and she confessed that she is going through the same. And for both of us, it’s not the changes to the body that we are most unsettled by, but this feeling of alienation.”
On Pi Day, I Remember Baking Pies with My Son
3.14.22
Tonight, instead of serving pie,
I serve the memory of pie—
serve the memory of pumpkins
we grew in the garden
then processed into custard.
Serve the memory of years
we made gluten-free crusts.
Serve the memory of your rhubarb plant
that will rise more robust this spring,
memory of thinly sliced apples,
key limes, lemon merengue,
and all those tart cherries
we harvested together.
I serve the joy we shared
in celebrating a constant
necessary to the geometry of the world.
I serve the thrill in knowing
there is something
both transcendental and infinite,
something death can never touch,
something ubiquitous that defines
the world we inhabit.
And though it is math,
it is no less love,
something that helps us
understand our universe,
something that hints
at the grand design
that amidst great catastrophe
continues to hold it all together.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
(A secret about this poem—the line indentations follow the digits of pi)
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
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This week, we talk with Paul Hearding about creativity in math. He shares his work in permutation polynomials and uses metaphor to help us understand what THAT means and how it is useful for cryptology. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What is the most creative way you’ve used storytelling as a means to an end?
What does your self-talk sound like when you’re stuck in a creative project?
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Emerging Form is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.