Number Debate
Once pi and i had a debate
About which is better
A square root of minus one
Or being a Greek letter.
'Be rational, ' said i to pi,
'You make things complicated-
No matter how they measure you,
You always come truncated.'
Said pi to i: 'So what, my friend,
It's really no big deal-
I'm transcendental unlike you,
And you aren't even real.'
'But if you want to be exact,
Then you come nowhere near
To finding areas of disks
Or a volume of a sphere'.
Said i to pi: 'It may be so,
But you forgot to mention
That you're a point on a line,
And I have two dimensions.'
'For if you want nth roots of one,
Therein is my appeal-
I'll find all roots of one for you-
Imaginary and real.'
'And I can add and multiply
All points in a plane,
For I'm more than decimals
By real line constrained.'
While they continued to debate,
Infinity appeared,
Saying to both pi and i:
'You both are nowhere near.'
'You both are finite, real or not,
But I'd take a bet
That none of you can match the size
Of countable sets.'
So it was settled-pi and i
Were finally set free,
For both found that they're too small
To match infinity.
[...] Read more
poem by Alexander Shaumyan
Added by Poetry Lover
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