by L. Wahlbin, Spring 2002
A Circus at Maryland
Is a pleasant affair.
You walk to the Math Home
And climb up the stairs.
Mathematics will greet you;
It's all in the air.
Old and New Friends will meet you.
Yes, it's that atmosphere.
If I were an M.D.
Healing Body and Soul:
A Circus at MD
Prescribed, makes you whole.
A Circus at Maryland
Is indeed a Most Pleasant Affair.
by R. Falk and R.B. Kellogg, Fall 2001
Heeding the words of GWB,
Continuing on our path,
A reduced but still energetic group
We presented our latest math.
Maxwell, powder, fluid flow,
The applications swirled,
Then engineer Mareno gave
A glimpse of the real world.
Discontinuous elements
Appeared at the circus again,
History is cyclical
And good ideas remain.
by L. Walhbin, Spring 2001
The Rotunda gives the Big Top idea,
The Lecture Room is Top Notch, we agree,
What Perfect a Venue,
for a Circus Adventure;
for algoreithms for DE in DE.
by B. Kellogg, Fall 2000
A numerical analyst named Bubba
Had considerable stability trouble.
For some help he was sent
To the circus he went
At a campus named after George W.
To explain he was offered the floor
His ideas were splattered with gore.
With his scheme inconsistent
His errors were persistent
At the end he was thrown out the door.
by R. Falk, Spring 2000
When the Rodeo joins the Circus,
It's an event you shouldn't miss.
It's a time to learn of new results
And a chance to reminisce.
The Circus founders knew it
And were there, just as long ago
To see Finite Elements still going strong.
Was there ever a doubt that would be so?
by L. Wahlbin, Fall 1999
The Millennium closes,
And so will this Circus;
Are Foundations done Right for the next thousand years?
Is reasoning Bright,
Are arguments Tight,
Will they Live in the next thousand years?
When Work sheds Light,
And is Bright and is Right,
It SHINES, through the next thousand years.
by R. Falk, Spring 1999
We got the order of speakers at the first circus
By drawing numbers from a hat.
In recent times we've gone high tech
Using a random number generator to do that.
Some complained, so Doug's computer
Now makes the sounds of days gone by.
If he can make it look like Mary Wheeler
We old-timers may start to cry.
Author's notes: 1. In the early circuses, Mary Wheeler was chosen
to draw the numbers.
2. This poem provides an updated ending
to the poem of Fall 1996.
by R. Falk, Spring 1998
It was the first circus ever in Denver
And Leo put on quite a show.
His web site had all the info
And the signs told you where to go.
He got the sun to shine on the Rockies
And the snacks were the best and most.
If Leo would only reimburse my airfare,
I'd make him permanent circus host.
by M. Suri, Fall 1997
In the land of magic and mythica,
Laid I mine eyes on the maiden of Ithaca.
I followed her to where she did dwell
In the shimmering kingdom they call Cornell.
A posteriori estimates at her feet did I lay,
Logarithms for her love I did slay.
Domains I decomposed, to amuse here
Secrets of superconvergence did I peruse her.
I hoped to win her over this way,
But my heart sank when she did say:
"Finite elements do nothing for me
I care not a whit for hp...
"If my hand 'tis your wish to secure,
Try not to be such a bore.
There's one big mistake you're making, pal...
This lady's a finite difference kinda gal!"
by D. French, Fall 1997
The time to discuss finite elements once again came around;
The circus was in Ithaca where fall colors could be found.
Alas, many of the usual performers did not appear
But we still gave our talks and they were all perfectly clear.
The lectures were excellent as we all would attest.
Lars vigorously chased that nasty logarithm pest,
John Osborn explained how badly our method could perform,
And from Jinchao Xu a new multigrid algorithm was born.
But the conference was quiter without Ivo to run the show:
No clapping or yelling to keep us all in tow.
His questioning and badgering were all part of the game
And he would not let us forget the L-shaped domain.
The Cornell circus will soon come to an end;
We have now shown where all our approximate solutions will tend.
So back to our homes we must now go
To refine more meshes before the next circus show.
by R. Falk, Spring 1997
The circus in the Big Apple,
I knew it was meant to be,
When Olof showed his unstructred mesh
And it was a map of NYC.
by R. Falk, Fall 1996
We used to determine the order of speakers
By drawing numbers from a hat.
Now we use a laptop computer
And random numbers to do that.
Someday, we may only have a virtual circus,
Connecting only by computer and phone.
I knew when I let those new guys run the circus
They would not leave well enough alone.
by R. Falk, Spring 1996
We came to South Carolina
To a circus hosted by Sue.
She made sure the azaleas were in bloom
And got Hootie and the Blowfish to be there too.
The talks proceeded at a leisurely pace,
An unheard of thirty minutes was each speaker's due.
It seems that all is well in the finite element world
Except for Ivo, who was home with the flu.
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