The Physical Revue Featuring Tom Lehrer Quiz

Answer: Hooke's Law

Tom Lehrer wrote the lyrics to this song, but used a tune from Gilbert and Sullivan (a favourite source of his) called "If You Give Me Your Attention", found in the operetta "Princess Ida". In the lyrics, the 'student' debates over whether the law is linear, quadratic or cubic, then remembers the need for a negative sign.

In words, Hooke's Law states that the force tending to restore the spring to its original position is equal in magnitude to the amount by which the spring has been stretched (x) multiplied by a constant (k) whose value depends on the spring under consideration.

The law applies to any elastic material, such as a spring, as long as the stretching force does not extend it too far - when the spring deforms, the law fails.

Answer: T squared / r cubed equals a constant

This song has words and music by Tom Lehrer, and is sung by Lewis Branscombe as The Professor, summarizing some of the basic equations from the course, and by Munro S. Edmonson as a student trying desperately to remember them.

The equations included describe the behaviour of an ideal gas (PV equals nRT), calculating the kinetic energy of a moving object (KE is one half m(v squared)) and calculating the period of a pendulum (T is 2 pi times the square root of L/g). The song does not include a discussion of Kepler's Third Law, which describes the relationship between the time it takes a planet to complete its orbit and its average distance from the sun.

Answer: Einstein

As well as reminding us that Newton's laws of motion and gravity have been superseded by Einstein's work, this song shows us Lehrer's tendency to move into political statements rather than staying in the safe world of theoretical mathematics and physics. The last verse goes:

So then if you are near when atom bombs appear,
And you're reduced to a pile of debris,
You'll know it's largely due to - Relativity.
Yes, you can place the blame on - Relativity.

The song focuses on the famous equation E=m(c squared), describing the relationship between the mass lost or gained in a nuclear reaction, and the amount of energy involved in the process, theory which was fundamental to the development of nuclear weapons.

Answer: Calculus

"The Derivative Song" has words by Tom Lehrer, set to the tune "There'll Be Some Changes Made", by W. Benton Overstreet. The song is sung in the revue by Robert H. Welker, accompanying himself on the guitar. If you can follow it, the song actually has a very nice summary of the process! Also, note the apt title of the tune he 'borrowed'.

Answer: plagiarism

Do not take this as good advice! According to the lyrics, nothing succeeds like plagiarism:
"Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'."

According to Lehrer, he has used several different Russian phrases to embellish this song over the years, all of which he was taught to pronounce by Munro Edmonson during this time. They include Russian translations of 'once there was a king who had a pet flea' and 'now I go [or I must go] where even the Tsar goes on foot (a reference to the toilet).'

Answer: 102

Remember, this song was being performed in January of 1951, and there have been more elements discovered since then. This was foreshadowed by Lehrer in the closing lines of the song:

"These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discavard."

The misspelling of Harvard and discovered is intended to reflect the way they were sung in order to produce a rhyme.

Answer: Guys and Dolls

The tune is that of "A Bushel and a Peck", by Frank Loesser, from the show "Guys and Dolls". As the first verse tells us,

"I love you, a liter and a gram
A liter and a gram, and it's crazy that I am,
A meter and a yard, and a Newton and a Watt,
A Newton and a Watt, and I wanna know a lot about you,
about you."

A liter (or litre) is a metric unit of volume, while the gram is a metric unit of mass. The rest of the song includes reference to many different common units used in making physical measurements, both metric and Imperial - poundal, dyne, foot-pound, erg, joule, calorie, centigrade, Fahrenheit.

Answer: Epsilon is positive

The first step of describing how to find the limit of a function traditionally starts with words something like "for every epsilon greater than zero there exists a delta such that ..." - this is called an epsilon-delta definition. The song asks for our sympathy for all those negative epsilons out there.

Answer: The Pirates of Penzance

Tom Lehrer sings and plays piano for the performance of this tribute from the physics department to their sister science, chemistry.

"Hail, Poetry" is part of the Finale for Act 1 of "The Pirates of Penzance". The song convinces the pirates to release the maids whom they were holding captive.

Answer: hiding notes to help them cheat on their exam

One really does have to wonder why Tom Lehrer seems to have a fixation on cheating. In this song, he urges students to hide bits of paper in the moving parts of their slide rules rather than try to write the notes on their bodies or clothing. In more modern terms, it is the equivalent of slipping some notes into your calculator case on the way into the exam.