Comedian Tim Minchin argues with a hippy named Storm. Not really a song about science, but … great british accents, great animation, great word-plays!
| “Knowledge is merely opinion! The human body is a mystery, science just falls in a hole when it tries to explain the nature of the soul” |
Another science that has trouble explaining the soul is physics. But they are good at banging things together. Small things:
| “now my tongue has tangled me toothless. and we don’t have a thought between us. in this one light room in this neon museum the walls itch in closer.” |
| “I have this great uncle/ who worked on the atomic bomb/ he got a nobel prize in physics/ and a place in this song/ and I bet there were no windows/ and no women in the room/ when they applied themselves/ to the pure science of/ boom” |
For me, one of the best discoveries I made while collecting science-themed songs is singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer. You may have encountered his song The Elements in an earlier mixtape. And this one obviously reminds me of the shortest mathematician joke: “Let epsilon be negative.”
“It is very hard to tease out the cognitive universals of music from a sample of white, suburban teenagers listening to Mozart,”
says jazz experimentalist Vijay Iyer in an interview in the current issue of Nature. Iyer started as a physicist but ‘hit a wall in research’ and switched fields to study body rhythmns and music, before becoming a professional jazz pianist and composer. He still carries science with him in his music – much more than other musicians:
“Some composers might write a string quartet ‘about’ string theory, but that is just inspiration, it is not really discovery. I’m more of an experimentalist.” *
Personally, I can stand Björk only in small doses, but since she is now a self-proclaimed science groupie I’ll give it another try. Especially since she was even featured in Nature Medicine and has a song Virus along the lines of “As a virus needs soft tissue, I need you”. Lovely!
Once I got started, I couldn’t stop: Collecting songs with a science theme is quite addictive. Maybe from now on I just hand them out in packages of five or so.
Pardis Sabeti, working at Harvard and the Broad Institute and lead scientist on a recent, discussion-stirring paper on detecting interactions, is also the lead singer in the band Thousand Days. And the person who put together this video must be a huge fan of her and her music – or it’s just a Broad-thing to promote everything and everybody with a video:
In science, meticulousness and diligence trump creativity and imagination. At least that is how it’s often perceived: Scientific logic and order lead to Truth; imaginative creative chaos leads to something looking nice at best.
This dichomtomy is all wrong and obstructs innovation, argues The Lab by David Edwards, a Harvard professor with a vision of disciplinary cross-over:
After the success of my collaboration with NotNicolajames here comes a new collection. This time it is Best Songs By Scientists: from frustrated love to educational propaganda and nerd-core!
The future of science lies in collaborations! And it is in the spirit of scientific collaboration that the blogging couple – a.k.a NotNicolaJames and her ScienceBoy – have joined forces to bring to you this collection of Best Songs About Science.
You think crocheting mathematical objects is almost too geeky to bear? Then you might want to sit down now!
It all started when Carl Zimmer saw a friend’s tattoo of a DNA molecule and realized he had bumped into the tip of a vast hidden iceberg.
He soon started to collect pictures scientists sent him. It probably helped that he is a rather well-known science writer for papers like the New York Times and magazines such as Discover; if I’d asked people for pictures of their body they’d have sued me for harrassment.
So far Carl has amassed more than 250 tattoos on his blog The Loom. If you ever feel the need to procrastinate, this collection is a great way to spend time.
And it gets even better. Now a selection of his collection got published as a book — Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.
In November 2011 Science Ink even made the #2 spot in the Amazon best seller lists for … Beauty and Fashion!
That makes me hope to see a new trend emerging here. I’d prefer to see more DNA tattoos than those ubiquitous tramp stamps.
Science Ink is on my Christmas wishlist. Let’s hope Nicola James reads this …
Florian
How to explain abstract scientific concepts? Ideally in a fun, engaging way with a clear punch-line and message that people find easy to carry home with them.
“For thousands of years mathematicians believed there were just 2 types of geometry, the plane and the sphere. But another more aberrant structure lurks beneath the surface of Euclid’s laws – one that has been illuminated through the art of crochet.” *
You’ve heard correctly: crochet!
The Institute for Figuring features many ways to make abstract topics more accessible, one of them is to crochet models of hyperbolic spaces. A whole institute dedicated to aesthetic dimensions of science and mathematics — this is awesome!
How to build a great research environment?
According to a recent article in Nature the HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus is a success story. How did they get there?
In today’s Guardian I read about a new Turner biography written by James Hamilton.
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) is famous for his energetic land- and seascapes. And what’s more..
..fresh research suggests JMW Turner’s work was also rooted in groundbreaking scientific theories.
Well, sure, why not? It seems Turner had many scientists as friends and it’s not surprising at all that some of the things they have told him may have made it into his paintings.
But now here comes the greatest compliment you can make an artist:
Hamilton said Turner’s sun was more than art – it was almost experimental science.
Wow! Your art is so great, it’s almost science. Almost!
What hubris!
Florian
