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The Pigeonhole Principle

by @cnidaria  @metalfoot 

Feb 26   educational mathematics mathcollab folk singalong

Liner Notes

@cnidaria:

Metalfoot and I have been wanting to do a math collab since last year. I was ready to give up on it but he saved the day by sending me these amazing lyrics. I went for the cutesy sing-song direction and decided to use it as an opportunity to practice my vocal harmonies (more practice needed... clearly).

Here is it.

Next year though, we're going to do something real convoluted like The Incompleteness Theorem.

@metalfoot:

Home sick from work with a bad head cold, I dug out my old combinatorics text book. Brualdi, chapter 2: The Pigeonhole Principle. And the song wrote itself, pretty much. Thanks @cnidaria for doing this with me... let's do it again next year!

Lyrics

Mathematics is a lot of fun
And mostly makes great sense
Here's an easy principle
That's not all that intense

It says, quite simply that if you have
Holes equalling n
And n+1 pigeons
At least 2 must share a den

Oh the pigeonhole principle
It's an easy one
It's the sort of thing which makes
Mathematics so much fun

So say you have fifteen pairs
Of socks inside your drawer
The room is cast in darkness
And you hear somebody snore

To ensure you have a pair
Of socks which match alike
Just grab sixteen socks in hand
And bring them to the light

Oh the pigeonhole principle
It's an easy one
It's the sort of thing which makes
Mathematics so much fun

Comments

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  • @aneil Feb 27

    What Fun!

  • @moonraccoon  Feb 26

    Delightful! Especially the sock-matching verse 😀

    Keep up the promising vocal harmony work; you've got a solid sensibility that's only going to get stronger as you work it.

  • @darcistrutt  Feb 26

    I enjoyed this! Of course I was a math major way back when so may be influenced by my past. Nicely sung and great writing,

  • @andygetch  Feb 26

    Yay for a collab song about socks! I like the cutesy staccato enunciated singing and the simple approach 😀

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