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:

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]

As well as gigs by such disparate acts as Funkadelic, Elbow, Grace Jones and Terry Callier, the festival - running from the 14th to the 22nd of June in venues across London - will include a collaboration between the Heritage Orchestra and Massive Attack, performing Vangelis' complete soundtrack to Ridley Scott's 1982 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?.

The Heritage Orchestra, a 45-piece orchestra dedicated to blurring boundaries between musical genres, describe themselves as having a "unique approach [that integrates] the rules of jazz, electronica, DJ-Culture and contemporary-classical" and have previously worked with acts like Amon Tobin and Plaid. For the Meltdown performance, their music will be mixed live by Massive Attack who will, undoubtedly, be channeling the spirit of the synthesizer sound of the original into the evening.

Of course, if you'd rather hear something with more bass, don't worry; Adrian Sherwood's DJing the Stiff Little Fingers gig the next night. Limited tickets for the various events go on sale this Thursday, with a wide release the following day.

Meltdown

The guitars used straight lines rather than the curvy ones seen in traditional models. This proved a little too freaky for 1958, and the original production runs of the Flying V and Explorer ended the following year (they were revived in 1967 and 1975, respectively). The Moderne never actually made it into production, or if it did, very few were made—it's a holy grail for the guitar geek (Gibson reissued the model in 1982). Ted McCarty told author Tom Wheeler that

Dealers would buy new Flying V's, but then they'd hang them in the windows just to attract attention. Some of them never tried to sell the thing; they were just too radical. I wish I had kept one each of the original models. I hear they are really highly prized these days.

Drummer Roger Taylor brought this to the band's attention, and they decided to gank it for their next cover. They contacted the artist of the original piece, Frank Kelly Freas, who painted the cover based on his own work. It features Freddie Mercury and Brian May dead in the robot's giant hand, while Taylor and bassist John Deacon plummet to the ground. It's definitely one of Queen's most identifiable album covers, which also contained the hits "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions."

Artist Frank Kelly Freas was involved in the science fiction field from 1950, until his death in 2005. He painted everything from pieces for NASA, to book covers, to magazine covers, to buxom beauties as nose art on fighter planes to Mad Magazine, and even the covers for the GURPS books for Lensman and Planet Krishna. He won numerous awards, and was often hailed of "The Dean of Science Fiction Artists." You can check out his awards, browse his art, and even buy pieces of his work at his website, which is chock full of information including a brief documentary by his wife Laura.

Just yesterday, BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin posted a great show from a local filk convention, where old-school filkers told her the story behind the word "filk" and explained the more traditional side of filking. It's strange to think bands like Goblin Cock have their roots in songs about cats and UNIX, but it's obvious they do. Similarly, heavy metal and hard rock owe a lot to folk and country music.

Now if you want to see some seriously awesome new-school filk, you have to check out this video from Judgment Day. The guys in the band use filky instruments like violins to Completely Rock Out in a way that pleases me all the way down to my bleeding entrails. Call it string metal, or call it zombie filking. Whatever you do, don't let it bite you.

Partch's idea was to return to a more natural set of musical sounds, but unfortunately all Western instruments are set up to use the 12-tone scale. So he just invented his own new orchestra that used the Just Intonation scale, including instruments called the "harmonic canon," the "chromelodeon," the "boo," the "quadrangularus reversum" and (my personal favorite) the "spoils of war." Many of these instruments make sounds that will remind you of classical Chinese music, and in some cases African music.

Essentially, Partch imagined an alternate history of Western music, in which composers never abandoned the Just Intonation scale, and instrument-makers used materials like bamboo in their work to create a more Asian sound.

The best part is that you can not only hear the alternate history orchestra, you can play in it. American Public Media has an amazing multimedia site devoted to Harry Partch, complete with Flash thingers that let you play Partch's instruments with your mouse or keyboard. I spent quite a while zooming all over the nernnerners and boops and KLARNGs of Partch's orchestra, and it was damn fun. Highly recommended if you want to experience the speculative side of music-making. Image by Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times.

Harry Partch's Instruments [American Public Media] (Thanks, Wishnevsky!)

More importantly, though, watch the videos and listen to the sounds. They're done with an amazing attention to detail that's inherent in Japanese culture. It's a key to understanding why the country spawns multi-tasking robots and cell phone handsets that look like they were made in 2050. "The idea of spirits residing in small things is very Japanese," Cornelius says.

I've been a fan of Cornelius since the late 90s, when Fantasma — a first album chock full of happy music that reminded me of a night at the circus or a sunny day on the beach — first came out. Back then, he took SXSW by a storm when he debuted live in the US with his mash-up video projections perfectly synced with the beats in his music.

Like A Rolling Stone:

Cornelius: For this video, we created a world that nobody has ever seen before. No matter how hard you try to decipher it, you can't really tell what's going on. Where is this world behind the doorways leading to? Here's a cow... this might be a washing machine...

We used mirrors to create this world. We lined up the figurines against a mirror about the size of a large coffee table, took one picture with a steel camera, moved them a tiny bit, took another picture, and continued to move them a little bit at a time and taking lots of pictures. We used this as material to edit with CG and created this stop motion animation-like effect. We erased the mirror lines and combined certain elements, making it into a completely indecipherable world. It gives the impression of watching humanity from afar.

(Video director Koichiro) Tsujikawa and I came up with this together. It didn't take that long to make — each video usually takes a month. Taping it actually just took 2-3 days, but the process of coming up with a concept and then materializing it takes a lot longer.

Fit Song:

Cornelius: Everything that's moving is CGI. That's not real sugar, even though it really looks like it, right? The biscuits are CGI, too. There's an old movie (from the 1980s) called The Way Things Go. It basically documents a long chain of events — something bumps into something else, and then that thing opens up, and then something comes out of that — one action leading to another action in continuous succession. We made something very similar by using stop motion animation and CGI to create movement that isn't ordinarily possible.

The set is actually my middle school friend's vacation home. We didn't want to do it in too big a space because it would make creating this scenario much more complicated. We also didn't have such a huge budget.

The guy who did the CGI is a top level CGI artist in Japan (named Munechika Inudo). He'd been working with the director, Mr. Tsujikawa, on some TV commercials, so he did this for us at a very reasonable price.

Mr. Inudo is pretty amazing. He graduated from Tokyo University with a degree in physics. He's a drummer, and he also won his company's marathon, and on top of that, he's super good looking. He reads math books before going to bed. This video was the last thing he did before he left his company to become a freelancer. It was a good opportunity for him to present his CGI skills—it encompasses everything he can do in one package. Since leaving his full-time job, he's had immense success as a freelance CGI artist.

While Daft Punk has been popular in the techno and French house music scenes since the 1990s, they've won over a whole generation of hip-hop fans since West included a sample of their 2001 song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" in his song "Stronger", which won a Grammy for Best Solo Rap Performance on Sunday night.

What's most impressive about Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo is their devotion to the robotic personas that hide their identities. Though they used to perform as themselves when they first came onto the scene, the duo began appearing as their robot counterparts with the release of their Discovery album. Now they hide their faces during interviews and digitally conceal themselves in photographs.

We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots.

He crushed the dreams of the Island Def Jam Music Group's marketing department by saying, "Uh, no. I just listened to it while I wrote the thing." Still, maybe the songs worked their way into his subconscious. Here's a list of top five things Fall Out Boy may have given to Cloverfield, and as you'd expect it's chock full of emo spoilers.

• "The Take Over, The Breaks Over":

  Baby, seasons change but people don't. And I'll always be waiting in the back room. I'm boring but overcompensate with Headlines and flash, flash, flash photography.

  Clearly this is all about the monster, who has apparently been around for years, waiting underwater in a deep slumber. When he arises, it's all flash, flash, flash... and shakycam photography.
• "Hum Hallelujah":

  We mix up your guts Your insides x-rayed And one day we'll get nostalgic for disaster

  J.J. Abrams and crew were nostalgic for a disaster when this thing was born from Godzilla toys. Plus, the monster clearly does some gut-mixing, and Marlena really could have done with an x-ray.
• "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs"

  Thanks for the memories Even though they weren't so great He tastes like you only sweeter

  Hey, even a monster can wax poetic about the folks he's eating. Plus the only real memories he's going to have from this whole ordeal are a rude awakening, lots of people screaming, and bombs bursting on his back. Not so great.
• "The Carpal Tunnel Of Love":

  Stomp out this disaster town You'll put your eyes to the sun and say, "I know you're only blinding to keep back What the clouds are hiding."

  Come on, anyone knows this is clearly a reference to the Tagruato Corporation's lost satellite that falls into the ocean near Coney Island in the film's final scene. Duh.
• "Bang The Doldrums":

  Best friends Ex-friends till the end Better off as lovers And not other way around Racing through the city

  OMG! It's like Rob and Lilly's anthem. So touching, so emotional, so vapid. Clearly this is the kind of song Abercrombie & Fitch models want to be hearing on their iPods while giant monsters chase them through urban catacombs.
• "I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears and None On My Fingers"

  And I'm so sorry But not really Tell the boys where to find my body New York eyes

  The monster laments about the destruction he's caused, although not really. Don't be fooled by those crocodile tears. He really just want you to point him towards the next city he can smash up, which according to the song seems to be Chicago. So, watch out Windy City. The music has spoken.

P-Funk featured so many science fiction elements, from the Mothership and the Clones of Funkenstein to "Atomic Dog." Where did the science fiction themes in P-Funk music come from?

To my knowledge, the early P-Funk scifi themes grew out of George and Bootsy's reported encounter with a UFO, somewhere out in the forest. I have no idea what they were doing in the forest but they have said that the encounter was so close, that it would have a lasting effect on them both. Of course, most of us musicians have either seen or been a UFO at some point in time during our careers, so a bit of sci-fi is bound to influence us.The Parliament-Funkadelic stage show in the 1970s was super elaborate, with the Mothership landing and the giant skull and lots of weird costumes. Did you guys think of it as creating a scifi opera on stage?

In my opinion, the whole P-Funk stage show could be considered as the first mash-up, with many different concepts mixed in... outta space... outer space... skull rock... pop-gun funk... a few cloned meat loaf-isms and even some sexy underwater-underwear mishaps. It was quite an event to behold and to be a part of. I guess you could say "everything plus the kitchen sink" but the science fictional aspects seemed to impact and stay with our fans the most, throughout the years.

A lot of your late 70s songs, like "Musical Son," "Theme From The Black Hole" and "(Not Just) Knee Deep," have totally infectious synth hooks. Were you trying for a science-fictional sound?

As far as my creations, "Musical Son" and "(Not Just) Knee Deep" were concerned, I would consider these songs to be based more on sci-fact, plotted against a grid that utilized my roots in Deep Funk/Jazz and Gospel. My guess is that the main reason the synth hooks sounded so different and futuristic was because the Moog gave an other-worldly vibe to what was mostly, up until then, a soundscape formed and upheld by non-fluidic aspects of analogue-esq instru-mentality. As such, there was very little fiction involved; it was really happening! Anyway, I always thought of a sci-fi synth sound to be more Theremin-like... perhaps something you would hear on Forbidden Planet or somewhat like the ARP sound from [the Ohio Players track] "The Funky Worm".

What made you decide to go all electronic with 1984's Evacuate Your Seats? Were you influenced by European techno music of that time?

I was compelled to make the project electronic. Evacuate Your Seats was happening for me, at the perfect time and represented the best opportunity for trying something different. I have never liked the idea of saying "this is my sound and I'm sticking with it". So, Evacuate caught me at a time when massive samplers were first being built and the Synclavier was the weapon of choice for any serious experimental keyboardist. Just check out some of the Zappa stuff.

These instruments were big, bulky and very expensive at that time. Case in point, a $10,000 sampler would only hold one 10 second sample so I had to use 15 of those devices for the Evacuate album. My Synclavier was another expensive monster and also used on the project.

To me, Evacuate did not sound like a European techno record. Maybe some might disagree, although I did like what the Europeans were doing with their music during that time. Evacuate occurred as a product of my own "new direction" into algorithmic sound and (simulated) computer sequencing. I say simulated because at the time of the recording, none of the gear would sync up together so most of the tracks had to be played and chopped up by hand.

Do you feel like you influenced today's electronic musicians?

I would like to think that there are some musicians who were and are still influenced by my electronics and synth work, aside from the rappers who used samples of my work.

For instance, since Evacuate was recorded in Detroit and was being played there quite a bit by DJs like The Electrifying Mojo, I did begin to see lots of youngsters catching on to the sound, some went on to become influential "musicians" in their own right and a style called Detroit Techno evolved soon afterwards. Perhaps there was some influence there, from Evacuate tracks like "Techno Freqs" and "Stick It In" but I can't say for sure.

What made you decide to start your own social networking site at iamnation.com?

By night-light, I have no choice but to become a super-mad funkateer with a half cape and a half-fro, so I guess you could say that IamNation is one of my respectable "digitized daytime job-style hobbies". IamNation is one of those internet projects that I've always wanted to create... especially since I caught wind of Livejournal a couple of years ago.

At the moment, membership at IamNation is by invitation only and just a few friends and I are using it for posting and messaging back and forth. One of the most famous of those friends is the fantastic P-Funk artist, Overton Loyd. Overton is also a contributer to the design of IamNation.

IamNation has recently turned 2 and I have now completed the forth upgrade to the system, so our members are just beginning to migrate over to the new site. I am also considering opening up a membership tier to the public, in the near future.

• Blade Runner: This movie has been sampled from everyone from Sigue Sigue Sputnik to Paul Haig, but it's Gary Numan who has a real love affair with it. He's used it in at least four different songs. It's been one of the most sampled movies used in music, particularly by electronica and punk bands. Wonder if the replicants would like this stuff.
• Star Trek: New Order and Jesus Jones have used lines from Star Trek in their songs, but the most popular song to borrow from Trek was "What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)" by Information Society. Spock's voice repeating "Pure energy" over and over was the hook for this number, and they ended up having to put (Pure Energy) in the title so people would know what this was.
• Dune: Dark and moody electronica and pseudo-goth music is attracted to Dune like the Harkonnen clan is to the spice. The trippy speech describing what the spice does is has been used by trancepop bands like Aphrodite to Astral Projection, and it makes you wish that stuff was real.
• RoboCop 2: Probably not the first movie that would spring to mind when you you think about killer samples. Front Line Assembly seriously mined this movie for their song Mindphaser, and made a killer scifi video to go with it.
• THX 1138: Electronica group Front 242 tossed in ten lines from this movie into their "Operating Tracks" song, and hopefully helped expose more people to this movie. Plus, if it was good enough for Babyland and Nine Inch Nails, who are we to argue?

• "Space Oddity" by David Bowie: Mercury Records considered this song about a stranded astronaut to be a gimmick track, and didn't pay much attention to it during production. However, they decided to rush it out to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing taking up much of the public attention, and it shot up the UK charts as a result.

  Best lyric: "And I think my spaceship knows which way to go"

• 
  
• "Rocket Man" by Elton John: Elton John's single about an astronaut's mixed feelings about leaving his family behind on a journey to Mars echoed a bit of Bowie's previous "Space Oddity," but has surpassed it in popularity and become one of his most popular.

  Best lyric: "Rocket Man, burning out his fuse up here alone."

• 
  
• "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby: Dolby's over the top homage to mad scientists actually featured a real British scientist with a cool name, Magnus Pyke, yelling out "Science!" during the song. On a side note, this also served as the opening song to the short-lived mutant teenagers tv show, The Misfits of Science.

  Best lyric: "Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"

• 
  
• "Fly Me To The Moon" by Frank Sintatra: Originally titled "In Other Words," this song became one of Sinatra's staples, recorded with Count Basie with an arrangement by Quincy Jones. The song was also played by the Apollo 10 astronauts while on their lunar mission, meaning it did literally fly to the moon.

  Best lyric: Let me see what spring is like, on Jupiter and Mars.

• 
  
• "Red Barchetta" by Rush: This song was inspired by the futuristic short story "A Nice Morning Drive" in Road and Track magazine about vehicles of a dystopian era which have become huge, safe, and boring. In the song, the narrator drives an old and illicit car kept by his uncle, and the new futuristic cars can't keep up when he zooms across a narrow bridge. Very early 80s. Very awesome.

  Best lyric: "I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car."

• 
  
• "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt. 1" by The Flaming Lips: This song from the Lips' concept album of the same name is about a young Japanese girl who works for the city, battling the giant robots that keep invading. She's a black belt in karate, she takes a lot of vitamins, and the robots don't stand a chance.

  Best lyric: "Those evil-natured robots, they're programmed to destroy us."

• 
  
• "Mr. Roboto" by Styx: Styx performed this song on their rock opera album Kilroy Was Here. In it, the hero Kilroy is placed in a futuristic rock and roll prison, and escapes by hiding himself inside a menial custodial robot, The Roboto. He escapes the prison inside the metal shell, and offers up his thanks in the form of this song.

  Best lyric: "With parts made in Japan, I am the modern man."

• 
  
• "Space Age Love Song" by Flock of Seagulls: Granted, nothing is particularly science fiction about this song other than the title, but it's so firmly rooted in the 1980s that we had to include it for the sheer amount of nostalgia-power it resonates with. If you catch the retro-arcade wonders documentary Chasing Ghosts, this song runs over a brilliant montage of the videogames of yesteryear.

  Best lyric: "I saw your eyes, and you touched my mind."

• 
  
• "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath: This song about a time-traveling man of steel seeking revenge has not only become a mainstay of anthem rock and Black Sabbath, but it's had a resurgence in popularity thanks to both Guitar Hero and the filmmakers of the upcoming Marvel superhero flick of the same name using it prominently in the trailer. Probably one of the most identifiable guitar riffs in all the world.

  Best lyric: "He was turned to steel, in the great magnetic field."

• 
  
• "Love Missile F1-11" by Sigue Sigue Sputnik: This song, filled with simple repeated lyrics and sound effects, has been brought back to life by being featured in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Bowie even covered it in 2003. We're still not sure why it continues to endure, but hey, it's a love missile, and it closes out our outer space playlist.

  Best lyric: "There goes my love rocket red."

We weren't really sure what to expect going into this movie, because every 3D experience we've been promised has been fairly "meh" in quality. The recent Beowulf CGI meets 3D experience wasn't bad, but the promised third dimension still felt like all the 3D films we'd been seeing for years. Namely, a few things loom out of the screen, but it feels like a gimmick instead of something organic.

Enter the U23D concert film. We've seen concert films before, but never like this one. From the first shot of a packed arena that opens up like a pop-up book, to the long zooms from the audience right up into Larry Mullen's drumface, or the Edge's guitar, it feels like an otherworldly experience. You're literally right there with the band, experiencing something 1,000 times better than the view you'd get from a front row seat. You can see Bono's setlist tossed down on the edge of the drum platform, a couple of cups of coffee next to water bottles, the stitching detail in their clothing and so on. It looks so realistic that at times it feels fake, like you're looking at a VR concert, or action figures in a plexiglass block. Extremely surreal.

In Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, there's a group of ad-hoc theme park workers bringing a new technology to Disneyworld called "flashbaking". They use it in the Hall of Presidents to bring "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" to new life by cramming the experience, smells of gunpowder, sounds of his era, photos, etc, into your cerebral cortex. It makes you feel like you're right there with a living, breathing Lincoln and a stretch of time within minutes. This film is as close to approximating that (albeit without the smells, the added into, and without any baking of our grey matter).

Some people will decry that it's not a true concert experience, since you aren't being battered around by sweaty people, crammed towards the stage like sardines, straining to see over the heads of those in front of you, and being charged astronomical ticket prices. But, we won't miss most of that. True, there's a lot to be said for the human experience during a concert, but we're excited about the possibilities this technology brings. Virtual concerts for the masses, priced for you wholesale.

The film was shot during their "Vertigo" tour throughout South America over several dates, but it's been assembled into a seamless experience. Shot with over 18 cameras and using the 3ality 3D technology, this is the first time zoom lenses have been used in 3D, and the first time they've done layered visual effects in 3D. The movie premieres at the Sundance Film Festival next week, but you'll be able to see it starting January 23rd at theaters all over.

We're not sure why Wilma wouldn't give things a spin, maybe with Tiger Man who is watching impassively in the background. Guess he wasn't a slave to the rhythm. Twiki isn't above getting out there and trying something new, so why does she have to be such a stick in the mud? This would be her chance to show Ardala up in an cosmic battle of boogie.

Here are the top 10, in no particular order:

• The Traits, "Nobody Loves the Hulk" (remade many times by Ska bands for some reason)
  
• Camberwell Now, "Green Lantern"
  
• David J (from Bauhaus), "This Vicious Cabaret" (a song from V for Vendetta)
  
• New Pornographers, "Challengers" (about the Challengers of the Unknown)
  
• Mekons, "Dan Dare" (just in time for Dan Dare's revival!)
  
• Fink Brothers, "Mutants in Mega-City One"
  
• Transvision Vamp, "Hanging Out with Halo Jones"
  
• Sun Ra, "I Am Gonna Unmask the Batman" (greatest title ever)
  
• Paul McCartney, "Magneto and the Titanium Man"
  
• Guided by Voices, "Matter-Eater Lad" (yes this is an actual hero from "Legion of Superheroes")

Scifi music began with filking, and the less said about that the better. But did you know that mega-popular band Blue Oyster Cult sang songs written by British scifi author Michael Moorcock? (One of those songs, "Black Blade," was a minor hit in the UK.) That's true scifi music for ya. And then there is the totally underground Massachusetts band Honest Bob and the Factory to Dealer Incentives, who sing about time cubes and Tatooine with feeling. Plus, one member of Honest Bob is an editor at New Scientist, which is serious cred.

And let us not forget that Judas Priest's song "Electric Eye" from way back in the 1980s is a brilliant dystopian vision of a world controlled by surveillance. OK, maybe not brilliant. But prescient! And very scifi.

Famous names: Blue Oyster Cult John Candy Devo Joe Flaherty Sammy Hagar Eugene Levy Stevie Nicks Grand Funk Railroad Black Sabbath Cheap Trick John Vernon

Crunchy goodness: 3

Elevator pitch: Animal House meets Flash Gordon, with more cartoon boobies. And one moving violation.

Sights you'll never unsee: Harry Canyon's "Mayonnaise Sandwich Royale"

Life lesson: When you've captured the last of the Tarakians, just kill her. Quickly. All this talking and whipping and everything just gives her time to think.

The Heavy Metal Movie Script