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# Pi Aelindrome Poetry

[GitHub](https://github.com/HectorTablero/QED-Scripts/blob/main/Magazine%201/Poetry%20and%20Mathematics%20-%20A%20Surprising%20Relationship/aelindromePi.js) (Open Source, MIT License) | [Live Demo](https://qed.mat.uam.es/revista/articulo/poesia-matematicas)

**Date:** July 2026
**Technologies:** JavaScript

---

## Overview

AelindromePi visualizes Anthony Etherin's aelindrome — a poem whose first two lines can be cut into fourteen letter-groups sized after the digits of pi (3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, …), such that reversing the order of those groups reproduces the last two lines exactly. The A-B-C…→…C-B-A structure is nearly impossible to describe in prose but immediate once the two strips of letters are drawn one above the other, colour-coded by group.

```javascript
// This element takes no parameters
::: js AelindromePi
0
aelindromo1
autoPlay, noControls, h=65
:::
```

### Implementation

**Deriving, not asserting, the decomposition.** On load, the element strips both the poem's first two lines and last two lines down to bare letters, then cuts the first string into runs using the digit sequence `[3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5, 8, 9, 7]`. It never hardcodes the reversed text — the mirrored strip is drawn by rendering the same `groups` array in reverse order, so the visual proof only works because the underlying letters genuinely match.

**Two synchronized strips.** Each of the fourteen groups gets a hue spaced evenly around the colour wheel (`hue(k) = 360k / groups.length`), applied consistently to both the forward strip and its mirrored counterpart, so a group and its reversed-order partner are visually linked by colour alone.

**Hover-to-highlight.** `move()` translates mouse coordinates into a character column and a row (top or bottom strip), then locates which group that column belongs to — walking forward through `groups` for the top strip, and backward for the mirrored bottom strip, since the second strip's columns don't correspond directly to the same `at` offsets. Hovering a group draws a bezier connector curve linking it to its mirror image across the gap between strips, and both cells outline in ink to confirm the match.

### Technical Considerations

Because the element visualizes exactly fourteen fixed groups derived from a fixed poem, it takes no meaningful parameters. Character cell width is computed once per frame from the container's width divided by the letter count, capped at 16px, keeping the strips legible in both a narrow embedded view and a wide fullscreen layout without separate breakpoints.