io9
"I'm your superluminal lover, baby, emission beamed into the night. Check out my relativistic jet, my love's faster than the speed of light." Ok, so Alan Marscher, Professor of Astronomy at Boston University, isn't exactly Bob Dylan. Or even LL Cool J. But he does write dope lyrics about astrophysics, and really, how many people can you say that about?" The latin rhythms of "Superluminal Love" are not all that the multi-talented Professor Marscher has to offer.
Prof. Marscher is an astrophysicist with a sense of humor and a guitar. He's written a series of songs about physics, some of which he performs during the classes he teaches at BU. He even put a bunch of them on his website - you can go check out all his lyrics, plus listen to mp3s of the tunes as performed by the Professor himself.
Here are some choice examples of these mad rhymes:
Professor Marscher, we salute you. Photo by: NASA.
Relatively Weird
Is it energy or mass? Well, E = mc2.
And if it goes really fast, put a gamma in there.Superluminal Lover
Full of twisting magnetism, feeling hot inside.
Bursting forth with energy, ready for a high-speed ride.
Acceleration growing, focusing my beam.
The jet starts flowing, plasma shoots downstream.Stars By the Colors
Red dwarf stars, a common sort, have low luminosity,
Living for hundreds of billion years in cool anonymity.
Luminous red giants are middle-aged, fat but not so hot,
With core collapsed to Earth-like size, hydrogen fuel is shot.Another Planet
On Mercury we'd roast all day & during the night we'd freeze.
We'd gasp for air to no avail with no atmosphere to breathe.
On Venus we would suffocate from CO2 gas so dense,
The greenhouse effect would bake our hide, the heat would be so intense.
Songs with Science Themes by Prof. Alan Marscher. [Prof. Alan Marscher]
Comments
For Those About To Grok just made my week. Srsly.
That sumerluminal lover bit just goes to show that even scientists have dirty minds.
That is pretty cool...
I took a course from this guy...
It was a good course.. I don't remember him busting out the guitar... :)
Too bad the title of this article is a thousand percent better than the lyrics this guy writes. Somebody buy him a few Sun Ra records, then stand back and let the astrophysics fly.
If I were his student I would never take him seriously again. Plasma jets shooting? Good thing in space they can't hear you scream...
I'd salute him. With a swift kick to the yarblockos.
Chock up yet another reason why the intarweb dooms us all.
It's OK, but I prefer MC Hawking.
@IntoAshes: I just read that book last summer. I kind of liked it. Needed more bugs and powered armor, but then again, what doesn't?
@DocGratis: Do you remember him making inappropriate passes at the female/male students?
"Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving,
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
Orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The Sun which is the source of all our power.
The Sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see,
Are traveling a million miles a day.
In an outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour,
In the galaxy they call the Milky Way."
Instead of trying to sing them like folk songs, take his lyrics and imagine them as performed by Eminem or LL Cool J or whoever it is the kids are listening to these days. They sound much more impressive.
Ok, maybe not much more impressive. Just a little more.
@RAHfanboy:
+ Watch video
Word!
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