I once again feel a sudden urge to sing along with Tom Lehrer

[struggle4progress]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNC-aj76zI4

Who made me the genius I am today?
The mathematician that others all quote?
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat?

One man deserves the credit!
One man deserves the blame!
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hai! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach ... I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize!

Plagiarize!
Let no one else's work evade your eyes!
Remember why the good Lord majorize!
So don't shade your eyes!
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize ... only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same!
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!
Hai! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach ... I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write.
It was on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing. What I'm going to do?
I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea ... ha ha!

I have a friend in Minsk who has a friend in Pinsk,
whose friend in Omsk has friend in Tomsk with friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk has friend in Petropavlovsk,
whose friend somehow is solving now the problem in Dnepropetrovsk!

And when his work is done ... ha ha! begins the fun!
From Dnepropetrovsk to Petropavlovsk by way of Iliysk and Novorossiysk
to Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk to Tomsk to Omsk to Pinsk to Minsk to me the news will run!
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write by morning, night, and afternoon and pretty soon
my name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed, when he finds out I publish first!

And who made me a big success and brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hai! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach ... I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda said: It stinks.
But Izvestia! Izvestia said: It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle' with Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Hai!

hattip: http://www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/revisited.html#peddle

[charlie and algernon]

1. Now I’d like to turn to the folk song,

which has become in recent years the particularly fashionable form of idiocy among the self-styled intellectual. we find that people who deplore the level
Rrent popular songs -- although I admit they do seem to be recording almost anything these days. have you heard sesue hayakawa’s record of remember pearl harbor? these same people who deplore th
El of current popular songs and yet will sit around enthralled singing jimmy crack corn and I don’t care or green grow the rushes, oh! -- whatever that means. at any rate, for this elite I have
An ancient irish ballad, which was written a few years ago, and which is replete with all the accoutrements of this art form. in particular, it has a sort of idiotic refrain, in this case ricket
Kety-tin you’ll notice cropping up from time to time, running through, I might add, interminable verses. the large number of verses being a feature expressly designed to please the true devotees
He folk song who seem to find
Singing fifty verses of on top of old smokey is twice as enjoyable as singing twenty-five.

This type of song also has what is known technically in music as a modal tune, which means -- for the benefit of any layman who may have wandered in this evening -- that I play a wrong note ever
And then.

This song though does differ strikingly from the genuine folk ballad in that in this song the words which are supposed to rhyme - actually do.

I, ah, I really should say that - I do not direct these remarks against the vast army of folk song lovers, but merely against that peculiar hard core who seem to equate authenticity with artisti
It and illiteracy with charm.

Oh, one more thing. one of the more important aspects of public folk singing is audience participation, and this happens to be a good song for group singing. so if any of you feel like joining i
H me on this song, I’d appreciate it if you would leave -- right now.

About a maid I’ll sing a song,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
About a maid I’ll sing a song
Who didn’t have her family long.
Not only did she do them wrong,
She did ev’ryone of them in, them in,
She did ev’ryone of them in.

One morning in a fit of pique,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One morning in a fit of pique,
She drowned her father in the creek.
The water tasted bad for a week,
And we had to make do with gin, with gin,
We had to make do with gin.

Her mother she could never stand,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
Her mother she cold never stand,
And so a cyanide soup she planned.
The mother died with a spoon in her hand,
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin,
Her face in a hideous grin.

She set her sister’s hair on fire,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
She set her sister’s hair on fire,
And as the smoke and flame rose high’r,
Danced around the funeral pyre,
Playin’ a violin, -olin,
Playin’ a violin.

She weighted her brother down with stones,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
She weighted her brother down with stones,
And sent him off to davy jones.
All they ever found were some bones,
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin,
Occasional pieces of skin.

One day when she had nothing to do,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One day when she had nothing to do,
She cut her baby brother in two,
And served him up as an irish stew,
And invited the neighbors in, -bors in,
Invited the neighbors in.

And when at last the police came by,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
And when at last the police came by,
Her little pranks she did not deny,
To do so she would have had to lie,
And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin,
Lying, she knew, was a sin.

My tragic tale, I won’t prolong,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
My tragic tale I won’t prolong,
And if you do not enjoy the song,
You’ve yourselves to blame if it’s too long,
You should never have let me begin, begin,
You should never have let me begin.

[Silver Swan]

2. I love that song

When I got brave enough to sing at open mike, and they asked for an encore, I sang that because of the perfect ending--"You should never have let me begin."

[struggle4progress]

6. It has a certain authenticity to it

[Lionel Mandrake]

3. Very amusing, but unfair to Lobachevsky.

Lobachevsky invented non-Euclidean geometry after Gauss did, but Gauss hadn't bothered to publish it. Lobachevsky was no plagiarist.

On the other hand, Tom Lehrer's song about Wernher von Braun was devastatingly accurate.

[struggle4progress]

5. "Mathematical discoveries, like springtime violets in the woods, have their season which no human

can hasten or retard" - Bolyai Farkas

Bolyai Janos published his non-euclidean geometry in any appendix to a book his father Farkas wrote in 1832. The elder Bolyai sent the appendix to Gauss, who replied "to praise it would be to praise myself; the entire contents of the work ... are almost perfectly in agreement with my
own meditations, some going back 30 – 35 years." Lobachevsky began publishing in 1829 but wrote his book in 1840. Apparently, the priority dispute sometimes became heated. But the now-known chronology supports what you say: as Bolyai Farkas noted, some things just seem destined to appear when the time is ripe

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/noneucl.pdf
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:ItYTjZaiEfIJ:www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/noneucl.pdf+bolyai+gauss&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera

[grasswire]

4. and here's my favorite

The Vatican Rag

First you get down on your knees
Fiddle with your rosaries
Bow your head with great respect
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect

Do whatever steps you want if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff
Everybody say his own kyrie eleison
Doin' the Vatican Rag

Get in line in that processional
Step into that small confessional
There, the guy who's got religion'll
Tell you if your sin's original

If it is, try playin' it safer
Drink the wine and chew the wafer
Two, four, six, eight
Time to transubstantiate

So get down upon your knees
Fiddle with your rosaries
Bow your head with great respect
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect

Make a cross on your abdomen
When in Rome do like a Roman
Ave Maria, gee it's good to see ya
Gettin' ecstatic an' sorta dramatic an'
Doin' the Vatican Rag

[struggle4progress]

7. I learned that song about forty years ago and sang it quite regularly for a while

[silverojo]

8. Best Tom Lehrer song EVER!

And not just because I'm a recovering Catholic. ;)

[kwassa]

11. My visit to St. Peters and the Vatican included singing this song while touring.

the wretched excess of it all.

[Lionel Mandrake]

9. Here's another song by Tom Lehrer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro

Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Nazi schmatzi," says Wernher von Braun

Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun

Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun

You too may be a big hero
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero
"In German oder English I know how to count down
Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun

[nomorenomore08]

10. Isn't it about the time of year for poisoning pigeons in the park?

:evilgrin:

[Lionel Mandrake]

12. Here you go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY&NR=1

[Midlodemocrat]

13. Grew up listening to this master. This is my favorite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgMTAj4f_o

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