FROSTY THE PHOTON
=================
Frosty the Photon
He is such a quantum sight;
You can see him pass with a zero mass
and a speed as fast as light.
Frosty the Photon
Has a wavelength we all know
With an energy given by h f
And he's born when candles glow.
There wasn't any magic
In the physics lab that night
But when they split those atoms wide
Ol' Frosty came to light.
Frosty the Photon.
Knows he'll be absorbed, he fears.
But his energy and momentum too
Will live on for endless years.
Zip-et-ty zip zip, Zip-et-ty zip zip,
Wouldn't Maxwell be surprised?
Zip-et-ty zip zip, Zip-et-ty zip,
Frosty waves as he passes by.
Frosty the Photon
He can come most any way:
Be it radio or infrared,
Up to cosmic and x-ray.
Frosty the Photon
Is anything but slow --
Moves through empty space
with style and grace
Fast as anything can go.
Well, Einstein, Planck, and Compton, too
Helped Frosty come to light
And Bohr suggested Frosty's born
When atoms de-excite.
Frosty the Photon.
Knows he'll be absorbed, he fears.
But his energy and momentum too
Will live on for endless years.
GRAVITY (Jingle Bells)
======================
A comet hit the earth
('Twas made of methane ice)
It strikes with massive force.
Oh could it happen twice?
What made the mass come here?
What made it hit the earth?
The answer's very clear, my friend,
You've known it since your birth.
Ohhhhh,
GRAVITY, GRAVITY
Keeps us on the ground.
An apple fell on Newton's head,
And what goes up comes down
Ohhhhh,
GRAVITY, GRAVITY
Keeps us in our place.
If gravity weren't here, my friend,
We'd all float out to space.
F equals m a,
and dp / dt .
Velocity is speed (almost)
momentum is m v.
No energy is lost,
Momentum is conserved,
And Newton's Second Law has fame
That's very well deserved.
Ohhhhh,
GRAVITY, GRAVITY
Keeps us on the ground.
An apple fell on Newton's head,
And what goes up comes down
Ohhhhh,
GRAVITY, GRAVITY
Mass times nine point eight.
You've got to travel very fast
If Earth you must escape.
"Mass times nine point eight"?
Believe it and beware:
Isaac Newton really knew
The force is "inverse square"
Fight it all you want,
Its force you'll never tame
Without it, mass would have no weight
Attraction is its game.
Ohhhhh,
GRAVITY, GRAVITY
Keeps us on the ground.
A rock will fall down to the earth,
The moon just "falls around"
Ohhhhh,
GRAVITY, GRAVITY
Some folks call it weight.
If you aren't too far from Earth
It's "mass times nine point eight".
WE THREE QUARKS
===============
We three quarks fine particles are.
Bearing charm we travel afar
Fields and forces, spin of course is
Multiplied by h-bar. Oh (CHORUS)
Quarks are wondrous, quarks are light
Quarks stay smugly out of sight;
Still misleading, still exceeding,
All the physicists' insight.
We three quarks are never alone
Single quarks we cannot condone
Up, Down, Charmed to do our duty
Stranger than Truth or Beauty. (CHORUS)
We three quarks trade gluons all day.
All baryons are made up this way.
Always hide, confined inside,
Unseen, forever stay. Oh (CHORUS)
GOD REST YE MERRY, PHYSICIST
============================
God rest ye merry, physicist,
Let nothing you dismay;
Remember Isaac Newton
Was born on Christmas Day
To build on Galileo's work
And lead us on our way
O three motion laws and calculus,
calculus
O three motion laws and calculus!
God rest ye merry, science profs,
Let nothing you dismay;
Don't moan or cry if you must grade
Your finals Christmas Day.
To save you from the Registriar,
If grades aren't on their way.
O tidings of A's and B's and C's
mostly C's
O tidings of A's and B's and C's.
DECK THE LABS
=============
Deck the labs with spools of wire.
Fa la la, la la, la la, la la.
My oscilloscope's on fire!
Fa la la, la la, la la, la la.
Who has taken my resistors?
Fa la la, la la la, la, la la.
Sing a song of bad transistors.
Fa la la, la la, la la, la la.
We don't know just how to work it.
Close the switch and blow the circuit.
Watch how our components light up.
Heedless of the manual's write-up.
Deck the labs with beams of lasers,
Lots more fun than Star Trek phasors,
Now we can observe reflection,
And determine light's direction.
Light through gratings
yield diffraction,
Then, with prisms, see refraction.
Lenses show magnification
and chromatic aberration.
Huge equations swiftly churning,
Is this what I should be learning?
Cutting, pasting, snipping, gluing,.
This is how we "learn by doing".
Fast away our lab time passes,
Measure lengths and weigh the masses,
Study quantities we measure,
When we finish, it's a pleasure.
TWELVE DAYS OF PHYSICS
======================
On the 1st day of physics,
Sir Isaac gave to me
acceleration due to gravity.
2nd day: two inertial frames.
3rd day: three force laws.
4th day: four inclined planes.
5th day: five falling weights.
6th day: six hues refracting.
7th day: seven focused lenses.
8th day: eight massless pulleys.
9th day: nine torques a-balanced.
10th day: ten wheels a-spinning.
11th day: 'leven ice cubes melting.
12th day: twelve key equations.