May 21st, 2008
BU astronomer sings about black holes, does cutting edge research
REALITY ABUSE (Words & Music by A. Marscher ©2003)
1. We search for a description of reality that fits our macroscopic mentality
Strip the world down to its finest scales, but that where normal logic fails
Electrons with no individuality, photons with wave-particle duality
Entangle in a logical fatality!
Chorus:
I’m so confused! Can’t figure out what it means, my mind’s abused, logic caught in between
Cause-and-effect has a deep defect, serendipity rules and we’re big fools
To think it should make any sense from our side of the size-scale fence
2. The unobserved filled with uncertainty, don’t know exact position and velocity
Outcome of measurement like throwing dice: repeat, yet you don’t get the same result twice
Determinism yields to probability, can’t imagine such unpredictability
Must be some mental inability . . .
[chorus]
Ending:
It’s no use . . . it’s mind abuse . . . I’m so confused . . .
Universe, what are you doing to my mind?!?
Good stuff, huh? Follow this link for 12 more, plus MP3’s (DRM free!) of all of Boston University astronomer, Alan Marscher’s physics songs. He writes these songs to supplement BU’s so-called “core curriculum” classes for undergraduates (he teaches one in astronomy) and, according to an article on CNN.com, finds that
“Anybody’s attention span during an hourlong period doesn’t really focus on someone just lecturing,” he said. The music “really does help to liven up the lectures.”
Perhaps even more interestingly, he and his team of researchers just published the first convincing evidence for a theory on the origin of particles ejected from black holes. Using (somewhat ironically, considering his musical bent), radio telescopes, his team was able to suggest that the swirling matter flying into black holes actually twists the magnetic field of the black hole allowing it to eject certain types of radiation and various particles.
His BU website doesn’t appear to have a new song to document this research, but there is a catchy song about the Big Bang:
UNIVERSAL HISTORY (THE BIG BANG) (words & music by A. Marscher ©2000)
1. Heat was incredibly intense, it was unimaginably dense, humans can make no sense of it in familiar terms
Phase change caused inflation beyond imagination, particles’ transmutation constantly occurred
No longer quite so hot, collisions then could not create gluons on the spot, strong force became distinct
Protons and neutrons were there, electron-positron pairs very soon disappeared, antimatter’s nearly extinct
Chorus:
Quarks and gluons, electrons, protons, neutrons and force fields, perhaps some dark axions
Our ultimate ancestors, that’s how we began in a hot primoridal soup they call the BIG BANG!!
2. Temperature became lower, collisions became slower, energy fell to where the strong force could now bind
Neutrons stuck to protons, becoming nucleons, the cores of simple atoms had been synthesized
The neutrinos and the photons outnumbered the electrons, neutrons and the protons by a billion to one
Expansion continued cooling, gravity’s incessant pulling caused matter to start pooling into large, massive clumps
[Chorus]
Bridge:
Atoms combined, photons now roam free, now we find stars and galaxies
Planets and moons, and you and me . . . this is our spectacular history!
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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