Physics Spice!

Making a song and dance out of physics 
(written by by James Gillies for the CERN courier, November, 1998)

Who needs the Spice Girls? What physicists want (what they really, really want) is
science entertainment from Les Horribles Cernettes and the physics chanteuse,
Lynda Williams. The Cernettes have been pulling in the crowds at CERN since
1990 with their unique blend of '60s pop and physics lyrics from the pen of Silvano
di Gennaro. Singer-songwriter Lynda Williams is a relative newcomer, but ever
since she hit the road in 1996 at the 44th Midwest Solid State Conference her feet
have hardly touched the ground. 

Las Horribles Cernettes are the original physics entertainers. Their name is a play
on the title of CERN's next major particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider,
and the song 'Collider' was their first hit. It was an anthem to unrequited love in the
time of coloured quarks, and it was also a plea from the heart. Back in 1990
Catherine Decosse was dating a physicist, Antonio, but she hardly ever saw him
because he was always too preoccupied with his experiment. In desperation she
asked CERN's de-facto songwriter in residence, Silvano de Gennaro, to put her
tragic tale to music. Catherine teamed up with Michelle Muller, the only original
Cernette still in the band, Caroline XXXX and Ruth XXX, and that summer they
were on stage for the first time at the CERN Music club's annual 'Hardronic
Festival' (Mix 'hadron' with 'hard rock' and that's what you get). As they belted out
for the first time Collider's unforgettable refrain: 'You don't go out with other girls
either - You only love your collider', it was not just Antonio who blushed with
shame. Physics husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends the world over must
have heaved a collective sigh of recognition at poor Catherine's sad story. 

We don't know whether Catherine had a happy ending or not, she left CERN soon
after, but the Cernettes have never looked back. They played to thousands at the
World Expo in Seville in 1992. They thrilled them to bits at the Computing in High
Energy Physics conference, CHEP'92. They've recorded a CD, starred on the
Franco-German TV channel ARTE, and they still top the bill at the CERN
Hardronic Festival. But the final seal of their success came with a copy-cat band.
All the top groups have them. The Beatles had the Monkeys, Oasis have
No-Way-Sis, and at the latest Hardronic festival, the Cernettes had the Canettes
(large beers in the Geneva dialect). Show me a CERN physicist who hasn't felt
their attraction (it's a strong interaction) and I'll show you a pig that can fly. 

There are many bands out there claiming to be first on the Web, but that honour
belongs to the Cernettes whose site includes pictures, sound clips, and even a fan
club set up by some ardent admirers in Norway. True, the Cernettes had a head
start, being based at the lab where the Web was invented, but they haven't rested
on their cyber-laurels. With their latest number, 'Surfing on the Web', they've
made another breakthrough with the world's first interactive pop video. You'll need
to be equipped with a VRML (Virtual Reality Mark-up Language) browser to get
the full benefit, but once you've got it you can sail off into Cyberspace with your
favourite Cernette (but only for as long as the song lasts). 

Like the Cernettes, Lynda Williams is out to entertain, but she also has a more
serious agenda. "I didn't know what science was until I was an adult", she says,
and urges other young people not to fall into the same trap. She chose philosophy
at college where her professor gently guided her towards physics. "Particle physics
was my first true love!", Lynda exclaims, and like all first loves it demanded to be
shouted from the rooftops. With a passion for music and dance, Lynda was better
equipped than most to do the shouting. And so with a major in math and a minor in
physics, she created the Physics Chanteuse, a well polished one-woman show
doing the rounds of conferences in the Western US. Each conference is different,
and each show is tailored to fit. At her first gig, the 44th Midwest Solid State
Conference in October 1996 she was Marilyn Monroe, tickling delegates' diodes
with 'Carbon is a Girl's best friend'. At the IEEE conference on Compound
Semiconductors she was in a 'Solid State of Mind'. And for the 1997 Particle
Accelerator Conference, she brought the Kit-Kat Club to Vancouver with her
rendition of Sally Bowles' Cabaret. 

"Lynda established a new standard with her unique vernacular", said Herb
Gronokin of her performance at The 24th International Symposium on Compound
Semiconductors. And as Gary Prinz remarked, she gets the physics right: "At one
point, she made a very esoteric reference to some solid state work, and I thought,
there must be twelve people in the world who know about that." 

Lynda's day job is teaching physics at the San Francisco State University where
she encourages her charges to "Get your mind muscles in shape while you are
young and you will get much more work and pleasure out of them in the long run".
She tells them that science is for everyone, not just for experts, and that it is their
"duty to be scientifically literate so that you can participate in the high tech world
we live in". But as well as teaching them, she's learning from them too. " I am
learning a lot more about physics teaching than I ever learned as a student", she
says, and she feeds it all back in to the physics chanteuse. Physics teachers were
never like that in my day. 

A Lynda Williams gig is pure entertainment, but if you listen closely enough, you'll
hear a message coming through loud and clear. Science is good for you, and what's
more, it can be fun. It's a message for everyone, but girls in particular, and it is
encapsulated in the song 'High-Tech Girl' which goes to the tune of Madonna's
'Material Girl': 

'Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me 
I think they're passé 
if they can't talk about quantum theory 
I just walk away. 
I like geeks and I like nerds 
at least they see the light. 
Science is my first true love 
Cuz it excites my mind.' 

Perhaps if Catherine Decosse had talked to Lynda back in 1990, she would have
thrown her lot in with Antonio and his collider. But then we'd never have had the
Cernettes, and the world of physics would be a poorer place for it. 

Further reading (and listening): 

Les Horribles Cernettes Web page: 
http://sgvenus.cern.ch/musiclub/cernettes 
Lynda Williams' Net Node: 
http://www.scientainment.com/

____________________________________________________________ 
James Gillies
CERN Email: James.Gillies@cern.ch