WORD FOR WORD / SINGING SCIENTISTS

Music of the Spheres: `Carbon Is a Girl's Best Friend'

By JAMES GLANZ

PERHAPS it was inevitable that as the Internet began permeating the culture, 
the techie language that was once confined to textbooks and instruction manuals 
would begin to sound beautiful, or at least pretty enough to sing. Physicists, 
who among other things invented the World Wide Web, have been quick to realize 
that their lexicon is no longer too obscure for pop songs. 

"The language is so lyrical, and I think it lends itself to poetry," 
said Lynda Williams, also known as the Physics Chanteuse. 

" 'Boson, get it on,' " she continued, referring to a species of 
subatomic particle. "You know, everything rhymes." 

Other thriving acts, like the Chromatics, an a cappella group, 
and Les Horribles Cernettes, a doo-wop band from Geneva, harmonize 
about everything from gamma rays to quarks to quantum theory. 

Will the Cernettes's "Liquid Nitrogen" hit the Top 40? Probably not. 
But then again, maybe audiophiles should reserve space in their 
collections for a coming invasion of warbling scientists. 




Ms. Williams, who teaches introductory physics and astronomy at 
San Francisco State University, recently released a CD titled "Cosmic Cabaret,"
 a sort of greatest hits collection. Like everyone in this field, she has a 
Web site (http://www.scientainment.com/) where the songs can also be heard. 
Here is her version of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." 


A lithium dose just might cure your depression 

but carbon is a girl's best friend. 

Gold may be grand but it won't start a fire in your 

BBQ or put the toot in your choo-choo. 

Life on Earth is carbon based. 

It came here on rocks from outer space 

and formed organic compounds till 

the carbon-cycle went round and round! 

Carbon is a girl's best friend! . . . 




Cuz time rolls on and supplies will be gone 

of diamonds, coal and petroleum. 

But nanotechnology can build anything with fullerenes! 

Carbon is a girl's best friend. 




The Physics Chanteuse doesn't hesitate to bring science to more recent material. 
Witness this heady adaptation 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. 

Chorus: We are living in a high-tech world 

and I am a high-tech girl. 

You know that we are living in a high-tech world 

and I am a high-tech girl. 


I like physics and mathematics. 

I think they are great. 

I can calculate cross sections and decay rates. 

I like playing with computers. 

I love crunching code. . . . 


"Love Boson" was inspired by scientists' attempts to find a theory 
that unites and explains all the forces in the universe. 

The Standard Model of Physics 

has four forces in it: 

the Strong, the Weak, Gravity 

and the Electromagnetic. 

But I've discovered a new force 

that rules from high above. 

Let me propose to you 

a Unified Theory of Love! 



This tune, based on Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," brought 
down the house at a 1997 symposium on compound semiconductors for
 scientists who study, not liquids or gases, but the so-called solid state. 

Some folks like astronomy and study galaxies in the local group. 

Some like quantum gravity, pulling super strings from the cosmic soup. 

But I'm pointing my laser, at an earthly crystalline. 

I'm in a Solid State of Mind. 


I've heard all the theories on the Higgs boson and supersymmetry. 

Been around the cyclotrons and down the beam lines of high energy. 

But I can build what I'm needing -- I don't need to wait for time. 

I'm in a Solid State of Mind. 


I really dig crystallography and the 

symmetries of lattices and point groups. 

Is it orthohombic, hexagonal or face centered cube? 

X-ray diffraction is a great way to spend some time. 

I'm in a Solid State of Mind. 





Les Horribles Cernettes (http://musiclub. cern.ch/cernettes/), 
led by Silvano de Genarro, a computer scientist, started out 10 years 
ago at the European particle physics laboratory in Geneva, where the 
Web was invented at about the same time. The laboratory is known by 
its French acronym, CERN -- hence the group's snappy name. 

My sweetheart's a Nobel Prize. 

My sweetheart's so smart and wise. 

My sweetheart is a Nobel Prize. 



He says a lot of things that I don't know, 

but I do know 

that I'll do anything he wants me to, 

'cause I do love him. 



I don't understand 

The funny signs on his blackboard. 

But when he holds my hand 

he takes me to the stars. 

My sweetheart's a Nobel Prize. . . . 


It seems even scientists aren't immune to the dark side of love. 


You poured liquid nitrogen down my spine 

as you told me you didn't love me any more 

and ran off with the girl next door. 

You poured liquid nitrogen in my heart 

and you told me it wouldn't hurt, what a liar. 

You promised you'd always be true. . . . 



You said you'd be mine 3,600 seconds an hour every day 

which in milliseconds that's 43,200 times 10 to the 3d. 

You said I'd be yours 24 hours a day, 

integrating until the end of time. 

Now in nanoseconds that's just the square root 

of 2,670 billion times 10 to 90 divided by two. 


The seven astrophysicists and other high-tech types who make 
up the Chromatics (http://www.pagecreations.com/chromatics/) 
work at places like the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the J
ohns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. One catchy number, 
"High Energy Groove," is a musical explanation of the various 
bands in the electromagnetic spectrum and which objects in space might emit each one. 

Chorus: X-rays, Gamma Rays, High Energy 

Hot Stars, Heavy Stars, High Density 

Quasars, Black Holes, Supernovae, 

Powerhouses lighting up the galaxy. 

Flashing, bursting, pulsing objects we could see 

if we had X-ray eyes, if we had X-ray eyes. 


Going up the spectrum, repeat after me: 

Radio, infrared, visible, U.V. 

Keep going all the way, what do you see? 

That's X-rays, gamma rays, high energy. 

An X-ray photon has a high frequency 

which means a shorter wavelength than you could ever see. 




"Sun Song" not only offers a useful lesson in nuclear physics
 but extols the insights of Hans Bethe, a Nobel Prize winner in physics at Cornell University. 


Our star, the Sun is a big ball of gas 

and it's 99 percent of our solar system's mass. 

It's an average star in the Milky Way 

warming the Earth every day. 


What powers our Sun and makes it so bright? 

Come on and tell me, what makes all that light? 

Hans Bethe long ago reached the conclusion 

It changes hydrogen to helium by nuclear fusion. 


When fusion takes place light is created 

And it makes its way out (although rather belated). 

Through the Photosphere (that's the part that we see) 

the light comes out and shines on you and me.