Physics Poetry 2008
Below are a selection of poems (i.e 1) from the 2008 Poetry Night, and once we have another, the poems collected will be added to this page.
Spotter The Otter
A big group of otters relaxed on the sand.
The otter called Fay and the otter called Caleb,
The otter called Delf and the otter called Waleb,
The otter called Vlistance, the otter called Froo,
The otter called Malachi Mulligan too,
All of them turned to the otter called Spotter,
The otter who wasn’t your ordinary otter.
Spotter the Otter had mastered the stars,
And the comets and Saturn and Venus and Mars.
The otters were gathered this fine and clear night
To learn about all of the stars in their sight.
“Please Spotter, explain,” said the otter called Vlistance,
“How stars that we see here came into existence.”
And Spotter the Otter then pointed his ’scope,
And all of the otters were lifted with hope,
’Cause they loved to look up at the heavens above.
One of them looked and he then said, “By Jove!”
Spotter let everyone look and then said,
“What you see there is the famous Horsehead.”
“A nebula has a collection of dust,
But it’s all very cold and it doesn’t combust.
If there’s enough dust, then maybe, perhaps,
Gravity makes it all start to collapse.”
“But Spotter,” asked one little otter called Fay,
“It can’t just be random – there must be a way
How to tell if the cloud will fall in or stay static.
The workings of physics must not be erratic.”
“You’re entirely correct there,” said Spotter to Fay.
“And now I’ll explain that with no more delay.
The formula here was discovered by Jeans,
But it might be too hard now to see what it means.”
And Spotter the Otter then cle-ared his throat,
And recited the formula studied by rote.
“You start with a factor of nine over four,
But then it gets harder – there’s much much much more!
One on the square root of two pi times n
Times one on the square of the H2 mass, then
Take the constant of Boltzmann and times it by T,
Divided by Newton’s ol’ constant big G,
Raised to the pow-er of three over two:
You’ve now got the Jeans mass, I swear that it’s true!”
“But what happens next?” asked the otter called Delf.
“When the gaseous cloud’s fallen in on itself?”
“You’re going too fast now,” was Spotter’s reply,
And Spotter the Otter then gave a small sigh.
“The cloud starts to collapse, and some sub-clouds of gas,
Sufficiently denser and with enough mass,
All clump together and start to rotate.
It makes the collapsing then start to abate:
It spins and it spins and gets hotter and hotter,
Until it’s more stable,” said Spotter the Otter.
“So the cloud as a whole will keep up its collapse,
But there might be some protostars, maybe, perhaps.”
“The protostar keeps on attracting more mass,
From all the surrounding molecular gas.
It slowly contracts and so generates heat,
Until this small part of its life is complete.
Its protostar life is then near its conclusion:
Deuterium then starts its nucle-ar fusion.
The accretion keeps making it more and more massive,
The internal behaviour gets less and less passive.
The hydrogen then starts to fuse and we see
A star that is cle-ar to you and to me!”
The otters’ instruction had come to an end,
Happy with what they could now comprehend.
So the otter called Bob and the otter called Pooley,
The otter called Squinky-Di-Alla Mavooley,
The otter called Plok and the otter called Totter,
All knew a lot more thanks to Spotter the Otter.
By David Barry
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Physics Poetry 2007
Below are a selection of poems from the 2007 Poetry Night.
A Physics Curriculum
And Newtonian concepts of motion, of course.
Basic equations will never be spared
(Like ess equals yoo tee plus half ay tee squared).
Then things get better, I’m sure you’ll agree:
Let kinetic be T and potential be V .
Take the difference of these two and call this guy L.
At the coming equation you’ll want to excel.
Write L as a function of q and q-dot.
Find dee L dee q-dot, and then once this is got,
Dee dee t of this guy, you’ll see that it’s true,
Is simply the same as dee L by dee q.
Then thermodynamics: the ide-ee-al gas.
You’ll be given the pressure and particles’ mass,
And density, volume and then asked to show
If the temperature therefore is high or is low.
If the system is large, you will need to find Z,
That function from which many things can be read.
Z is the sum of all terms— Can you guess?
Ee to the negative β ee ess!
Next about optics you’ll learn of this fact:
When changing a meedyum a wave will refract.
The law that describes this is named after Snell,
And it’s simple and short but it works very well.
Take n in part 1 over n in part 2,
And look how the angle got smaller or grew.
All students will know then, yes even the worst,
That it’s sine of the second on sine of the first!
From down in the doldrums did physics revive
With what Einstein published in nineteen oh five.
Light in a vacuum goes at the same speed,
Regardless of reference, religion or creed.
Time can’t be constant if this is the case,
And here is the formula taking its place:
b is the quotient of v over c,
Then it’s 1 on root 1 less that b squared, times t.
Schrödinger, Bohr and the constant of Planck
(Last is the favourite of many a crank!).
Quantum mechanics is king of the small,
And its myst’ries and magic will always enthrall.
The state of the system is written as Φ.
Multiply this by an hbar times i.
The fluxion of this you can easily see:
It’s Hamilton’s H times that Φ times dt.
There’s a lot more to physics than just all of that,
Like atoms and photons and Schrödinger’s cat.
But it takes me forever to get this to rhyme,
And to go any further I’d need much more time.
By David Barry
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I'd Rather be a Lawyer
Things were going fine.
Met some great new people, and
Was having a great time.
...but then.....
"The time has come" (the lecturer said)
"to speak of many things".
Of photons, quarks and lazer-beams
And theories made of strings.
At that point, I'm sad to say
My brain, it turned to goo
All runny it was, and it leaked
From orifices, one and two. [point to left and right ears]
At that point, I must report
I rested my weary head
Upon the floor, raised both my arms
And legs, and just played dead.
It's not all bad, I must admit
There are something's I quite like
The explosions are rather cool
And so is Andrew White.
But no! My brain 'made up its mind'
It shouted "I object"!
Lets do something easier
Something more...perfect.
My course was clear, my way mapped out
No thinking anymore.
No more crummy physics stuff
I'll go and study law.
That's all good! It felt all right
It all made sense, it's true.
To convince you round, to my line of thought
I give you reasons, two;
First, studying law is better
It's really much more fun.
I'd rather be in a law lecture
Than a boring physics one.
For law lectures are more funny
I'm sure you'll realize.
When the only source of humor in YOUR lectures is;
"For this, he gets Nobel prize!?"
In law, I've never fallen asleep
Not one lecture have I missed.
I know this happens in Science ones though
Naming no names (Chris).
Secondly, and this is the one
I think is rather funny.
While you all bludge off Centrelink
I'll be making money.
While you exist on minimum-wage
(And I hope this makes it clear).
By then I'll be earning
About..oh..half a mil. a year.
Yes, in terms of luxury
Your future's fairly Spartan.
You'll be driving Holdens, while
I'm in an Aston Martin
When research bills are through the roof
And ethics legal cases are pursuing.
Take a look around you guys!
I'm the one whose suing.
No, it's not morals and ethics
That make me pick my field.
Plenty work for the human good
I'll go for something...more high-yield.
I'd rather be a lawyer
(Yes, this poem is rather long).
I'll say it again and again
I'll even sing it through song;
[sing to tune of "I wish I was a punk-rocker"]
Oh I wish I was an old lawyer
With a wig instead of hair.
I may not be making lazer-guns
But I don't even care.
I think that it is fate...
You may not think it's fa-aaaaaair
But I wanna be an old lawyer
With a wig instead of haaaaaaaair!
[stop singing, please god stop singing now]
My sad melody line aside
I hope it's becoming clear.
My reasons for this thing I say
I'd rather be a lawyer.
You may ask what on earths the point?
(And I applaud your intuition).
Of joining a profession universally disliked?
Well..at least I'm not a politician.
You say, how can you want to join
A profession, reputation torn
Apart by guys like O.J. Simpson?
My friends, I give you Sean.
Again, you ask, why wear wigs and robes
When injustice you must fight?
In short, why go to work
Dressed up like a transvestite?
I've got no ready answer, but
Before you get indignant.
At least I don't have to know
That stupid Bose-Einstein Constant.
Folks, we reach now, the end of my prose
And, although it might annoy yer.
I'll take my fun lectures, and bags of cash
I'd rather be a lawyer.
By Christopher Wright
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The Adventures of John the Electron
And the laser beams sat a mysterious box.
From here it just looks like a regular cube,
But inside you will see it’s a cathode ray tube.
In the CRT’s wi-re a current was flowing,
And John the Electron’s excitement was growing.
The electrons did play with that force they all shared
(k times q-one times q-two on r squared),
But all of them now only thought of their dream:
Leaving the wi-re and joining the beam.
You may think this life is a little bit vapid;
For them it’s like paddling a whitewater rapid.
John bounced off some charges and then he was free!
He yelled out in triumph and chortled with glee!
He zoomed through the vacuum and moved very fast,
Enjoying the moment; forgetting the past.
But ahead was a hurdle for this little caper:
A magnetic field pointed into the paper.
“Oh no!” said poor John. “It’s an end to my fun!
My free particle days are all dusted and done!
Look at my path and the field, if you please,
The angle between us is ninety degrees!
Then” (you should know) “an electromag quirk’ll
Consign me to move in a boring old circle.
I know I can’t always have freedom, of course,
But this’ll become a centripetal force!”1
1: The author confesses he’s not thought this through:
You need ten thousand teslas for this to be true.
The circular fate of poor Johnny was sealed
By his charge times his speed times the magnetic field.
If you make this the same as the force that you need
(That is m over r, times the square of the speed),
You can find what the size of John’s circle must be:
It’s one over q, over B, times mv.
It looked like John wouldn’t be able to cope,
But still he clinged onto one last final hope.
“If the magnetic region does not get much bigger,
It’s easily seen (and with excellent rigour)
My trajectory’s motion will not become bound,
For all it will do is just turn me around.”
John entered the field and he swung to the right,
Hoping and hoping with all of his might
That approaching the end of his half-revolution
He’d sense in the field any sharp diminution.
But a new pair of magnets was placed by the first:
Realising John’s fe-ars, the worst of the worst!
Any small fraction of lingering doubt
Was smashed when the CRT’s voltage went out.
The lives of electrons come with this great risk:
Tracing out a trajectory shaped like a disc.
The story to this point might look nice and neat,
But a rotating charge has to radiate heat.
Abraham published (along with Lorentz)
A formula making a good deal of sense.
I think that all people should find it concerning
That students will skip this – a gap in their learning.
One sixth a dot times q squared is what should be taught,
Times one on π c cubed times epsilon-nought.
The upshot of this was a deceleration.
(Though nothing did change to the time of rotation.
Now don’t look at me to correct and condemn,
The angular frequency’s qB on m.)
The spiral got small and though John did protest,
He kept slowing down and he finished at rest.
By David Barry
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