Physics Carols

This column attributed to:
Catholic Memorial

  1. O Gravity
  2. Gravity Jingle Bells
  3. Oh - Sin Theta-One Times Index One
  4. Photons of Light
  5. Deck the Physics Lab
  6. O Little Physics Reference Sheet
  7. Joy To The World

This column attributed to
1, 3, 10 The Physics Teacher
12 Dennis McNulty Warren Central High School Indianapolis IN.
13, 14, 15 credit to Northern Arizona University Faculty
The rest are credited to "Unknown"

  1. We Three Quarks
  2. God Rest Ye Merry Physics Profs
  3. Deck the Halls V2.1 & V2.2
  4. If You Throw a Ball on High
  5. Oh, High T-C
  6. Awake in the Library
  7. Frosty the Photon
  8. Oh Feigenbaum
  9. Cold Fusion
  10. Photocells
  11. Oh Physicist
  12. The Twelve Days of Newton 
  13. We Three Deans
  14. James Clerk Maxwell
  15. We Wish We were Passing Physics
  16. Another 12 Days of:

O Gravity

(Melody: O Christmas Tree)

O Gravity, O Gravity,
All Newton's theories crowning,
Where e'er we be, land, air, or sea,
We're subject to your "downing"
F equals G, m-one, m-two,
All over R squared, yes, it's true.
O Gravity, O Gravity,
We cannot flee, you guarantee!


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l. We Three Quarks

    (to the tune of ‘We Three Kings’)

We three quarks fine particles are
Bearing charm we travel afar
Fields and forces, spin of course is
Multiplied by h-bar.
Oh, quarks are wondrous, quarks are light
Quarks have colors, clear and bright.
Still misleading, still exceeding
All the physicists' insight.
We three quarks trade gluons all day
All baryons are made in this way.
Confined inside, we always hide
Unseen forever stay.
Oh, quarks are wondrous, quarks are light
Quarks stay snugly out of sight.
Still misleading, still exceeding
All the physicists' insight.


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Gravity Jingle Bells

(Melody: Jingle Bells)

When something hits the earth,
You'll notice in a trice,
It makes a great big bang,
Now isn't that so nice?
So what makes things fall down?
What makes them go ker-plop?
The answer's in this song, my friend,
We'll sing it 'till we drop.
Oh!
Gravity, Gravity,
Keeps us on the ground.
It was explained by Newton,
(The scientist renowned)!
Gravity, Gravity,
Mass times nine-point-eight.
Is a vector pointing down,
That's sometimes known as "weight."

Walk around the earth.
Keep a steady pace.
If gravity weren't there,
You'd float away in space.
Now some call it a push--
Well, call it any name,
But gravity will always PULL--
Attraction is its game!
Oh!
Gravity, Gravity,
Keeps us on the ground.
It was explained by Newton,
(The scientist renowned)!
Gravity, Gravity,
Mass times nine-point-eight.
Is a vector pointing down,
That's sometimes known as "weight."


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2. God Rest Ye merry Physics Profs

    (to the tune of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen")

God rest ye merry Physics profs
Let nothing you dismay.
Don't moan or cry if you must all
Grade finals Christmas Day
To save you from the registrar
If grades aren't on the way.
Chorus:  Oh, oh, tidings of A's, B's, and C's

Mostly C's


Oh, oh, tidings of A's, B's, and C's.
In Wes-le-yan, in Phys-ics
The teachers do not scorn
Assignments that can only
Be done by early morn
No wonder when we come to class
we all look so forlorn.

Chorus:


From God our Heav'nly Father
The laws of physics came
And unto certain Physicists
Did he reveal the same.
And now we have to learn them all
On threat of F's and shame.

Chorus:


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Oh - Sin Theta-One Times Index One

(Melody: God Rest Ye merry, Gentlemen)

Light travels in straight lines,
that is unless somehow it's turned.
It can reflect (or bounce right back),
But that's quite eas'ly learned.
Refraction is the property
with which we're now concerned:

Chorus:
Oh - Sin theta-one times index one
is equal to
Sin theta-two times index two!

Refraction is the bending
which is caused by changing speed.
When entering at an angle,
light will bend, and then proceed--
to travel in a new straight line,
wherever that may lead.

Oh - Sin theta-one times index one
is equal to
Sin theta-two times index two!

Now since the bending's caused by changing speed, we have a clue
To calculate light's speed in any medium, (it's true!)
n-one v-one is equal to n-two times v-two.

Oh - Sin theta-one times index one
is equal to
Sin theta-two times index two!

When slowing down the light bends 'toward the normal' as they say.
When speeding-up it will bend from the normal away --
Until the angle critical is reached to our dismay!

Oh - Sin theta-one times index one
is equal to
Sin theta-two times index two!


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3. Deck the Halls v2.1

Deck the halls with spools of wire.. Fa, la, la, etc.
My oscilloscope's on fire ...
Who has taken my resistors?...
Sing a song of bad transistors.
Fill the lab with amplifiers Fa, la, la, etc.
My new circuit has no wires...
All the op-amps have no gain...
Electronics is a pain.
Work till midnight, then work longer...
Watch that circuit get still wronger...
If it has a major defect...
Fix it has an honors project.
Shoot the walls with Star Wars' phasors...
Made from Hunter’s diode lasers...
Though they glow with opalescence...
Still can't see the damn fluorescence.
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V2.2. Deck the Halls

Deck the halls with boughs of chaos Fa, la, la, etc.
strange attractors swirl around us....
Fluids bubble, periods double,...
Bifurcations wake a torus....
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V2.3 Deck the Physics Lab

Deck the physics lab with lenses, (fa,la,la...)
Light bends more when they are densest, (fa,la,la...)
We can now observe reflection, (fa,la,la...)
Not to mention its direction, (fa,la,la...)
Stroboscopes are swiftly turning, (fa,la,la...)
While our eager minds are learning, (fa,la,la...)
Light diffraction we can now see, (fa,la,la...)
See how fun our physics can be, (ha,ha,ha...)


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Photons of Light

(Melody: Silent Night)

Photons of light,
Sparkling bright,
Energy
in the night.
Energy like a stash in the bank.
Frequency times the constant of Planck.
Energy we can use...
use it as we choose!


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4. If You Throw a Ball on High

    (to the tune of "Angels We Have Heard on High")


If you throw a ball on high
Central forces bring it nigh
If it starts out upward bound
Further east it will be found

Cor.....iolis
In acceleration
Cor.......iolis
In acceleration

Use Lorentz's transform law
Yes, I see dee tee dee tau
Relativity is fun
Four vec-tors are quickly done

Lor.......entz
In acceleration
Lor....entz
In acceleration

It you send your twin away
She will have a slower day.
If you watch each other's clocks
Then you have a paradox,

Ein......stein
In time dilation
Ein......stein
In time dilation

Superconductivity
There's no resistivity
But it stops at three degrees
So we work in the deep freeze.

He........lium
In refrigeration
He.......lium
In refrigeration,


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Deck the Physics Lab

(Melody: Deck the Halls)

Deck the Physics lab with vectors
(Fa la la la la la la la la la)
And with laser light reflectors
(Fa la la la la la la la la la)
Let us have a celebration
(Fa la la la la la la la la)
Full of song and jubilation
(Fa la la la la la la la la )

Deck the lab and be of good cheer.
(Fa la la la la la la la la la)
No more Physics classes this year!
(Fa la la la la la la la la)
But one question can be foreseen...
(Fa la la la la la la la la)
Who the heck knows what these words mean:
"Fa la la la la la la la la"?


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5. Oh, High T-C

    (to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum")


Oh high T-C, Oh high T-C
Is your limit yet approaching?
Oh high T-C, Oh high T-C
You bring us fame and funding.
We put in grams of yttrium,
And copper ox- ide, chewing gum.
Oh high T-C, Oh high T-C,
We've thrown out all the helium.
Oh high T-C, Oh high T-C,
We push you to infinity.
Oh high T-C, Oh high T-C,
There's no net resistivity.
The theory's crude and rough and wrong,
But NSF will love this song.
Oh high T-C, Oh high T-C,
You bring us fame and funding.
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O Little Physics Reference Sheet

(Melody: O Little Town of Bethlehem)

O Little Physics Reference Sheet,
so much information's here.
With our Mechanics, Waves, and Heat,
You've helped us a lot this year.
The speeds of light and sound
and refractive indicies,
They all are here,
We shall not fear,
While holding facts like these.

And lots of useful formulae,
are tabulated here.
They help refresh

our memories,
when recall is less-than-clear.
For Distance-Time relations,
and laws of E and M,
will sometimes blur,
so we refer
To you to look for them.

Specific Heats, and Boiling points,
and trigonometric sines,
Though highly prized, aren't memorized.
They're looked-up within your lines.
Examinations final are not too far away.
We know that you will help us through
The physics Judgment-day.


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6. Awake in the Library

( to the tune of "Away in a Manger" )


Awake in the library
Late Saturday night,
The poor physics majors
Pondered their plight.
The problem set lo-ong
and no end in sight.
Of all of the answers
Not one was right.
They used all the tricks that
The teachers had taught:
Expand about zero then
Drop x sub-naught.
Divide the right si-ide
By modulo z.
If that doesn’t work,
Let pi approach three.
So up in the library
At four in the morn,
The poor physics majors of
All hopes were shorn.
The sun rose that morning;
The stars went away.
But through their next classes
Asleep there they lay.
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Joy to the World

(Melody: Joy To The World)

Joy to the World, the last dumb song
Is over -- now we're through!
Our singing we will not prolong--
(That's what you hoped for all along).
Christmas greetings we renew
Merry Christmas now to you,
Christmas greetings we now renew,
Merry Christmas, and adieu!


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7. Frosty the Photon

    ( to the tune of 'Frosty the Snowman' )

Frosty the photon
Escaped from a black hole,
Then he used his spin
To find his kin,
Near the ends of a dipole.
Frosty the photon
With momentum h-bar-k
Though he had the right
To be known as light,
He was called a gamma ray.
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8. Oh Feigenbaum

    (to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum")

Oh Feigenbaum, Oh Feigenbaum
Your numbers do delight us.
Oh Feigenbaum, Oh Feigenbaum
They quantify the chaos.
Your alphas scale when periods flip;
Your deltas tell us when to split.
Oh Feigenbaum, Oh Feigenbaum
Your numbers do delight us.
Oh Feigenbaum, Oh Feigenbaum
Your numbers have awakened
Oh Feigenbaum, Oh Feigenbaum
A field long God-forsaken.
Two point five oh two nine oh
And four point six six nine two oh
Oh Feigenbaum, Oh Feigenbaum
Your numbers do delight us.
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9. Cold Fusion

    (to the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing")

Call the press and M-T-V
Do not write to AJP,
I claim heat and neutrons nine;
The Nobel Prize will soon be mine.
Deut'trons fuse and cook and simmer,
Plat-i-num is now the winner.
Hark the Times may now proclaim
Yes, cold fusion is my game.
Call the news, TV and press.
We're deep in this fusion mess;
Skeptics claim that I of course
Have forgot the Coulomb force.
More heat out than I put in,
Not believing is a sin.
Throw away your red hot plasma;
Use your laser to treat asthma.
Now Dan Rather can proclaim
Breakthrough results, success and fame.
Call the press, yes, that's my creed.
Ten million dollars is what I need.
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10. Photocells

    (to the tune of "Jingle Bells")

Dashing through space-time
At the speed of light
Through vector fields we go
With our colors bright.
Keeping constant speed
In every frame is right.
Oh what fun it is to be a photon in the night.

Chorus: Decibels, photocells,
Now I'm going to lase.
Oh what fun it is to be a boson in the rays. Hey!
Grad of dels, colored gels,
Diffraction grating blaze.
Oh what fun it is to be a boson in the rays.

Cut across the lab
By a mirror steered
Through the slits we go
Nothing do we fear.
Back again we come
To the screen we've veered,
Oh what fun it is to be a photon interfered.

Chorus...


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11. Oh Physicist

    (sung to the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree")

When we were young and freshman all
We thought that physics was a ball
But that is true if only you
Can make approximations,
In early days we thought the fuss
Was just about the calculus.

Chorus: Oh Physicist, Oh Physicist
I wish that I could be one.

In sophomore year when we met del
We still thought all was going well
But all the wells that we could see
Were bounded at infinity.
When we found out that quarks were strange
It did not make our majors change.

Chorus.

By junior year we knew we ought
To wave good-bye to normal thought.
Our minds began to get disturbed
When shown how orbits are perturbed.
We never guessed that the Master key
Meant late night labs we could not flee.

Chorus..

It's senior year, the time draws near
That brings the end of classes.
We find that we amazed must be
To think our profs will pass us.
When it comes time to graduate,
We hope we'll be in solid state.

Chorus...

To graduate school we now are bound
And 10 years hence will still be found
A decade's work is all for naught
Because a square root I forgot
We realize our Ph.D. is waiting at infinity.

Chorus...


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12. The Twelve Days of Newton

On the first day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    The acceleration due to Gravity
On the second day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Two torques a balanced
On the third day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Three laws of motion
On the fourth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Four apples falling
On the fifth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Five Newton’s rings
On the sixth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Six point six seven
On the seventh day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Seven spectrum colors
On the eighth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Eight mints of money
On the ninth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Nine point eight
On the tenth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Ten z-components
On the eleventh day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Eleven speeds of sound
On the twelfth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me
    Twelve particles of light


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13. We Three Deans

          (Tune: We Three Kings)

We three deans have budgets of woe
Still we have a half year to go.
Funding lacking we go tracking after elusive dough.
Ooh, Ooh, money's tight, the budget's bad.
Students think that they've been had.
Raise tuition, cause attrition
Oh, we are so very sad!
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14. James Clerk Maxwell

          (Tune: Good King Wenceslas)

James Clerk Maxwell did look out
On the fields of Faraday.
Where the charge lay round about
Scattered this and that‑a‑way.
Twisted boundaries in and out
Raised to strange potentials.
If solutions could be found,
It would be providential.

Then came four equations out
With assorted Theorems,
Complex singularities,
Maxwell didn't fear 'em.
Tamed the demons, wrote a book,
Set right former errors.
Gave to theorists pure delight,
And to students terrors!


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15. We Wish We Were Passing Physics

          (Tune: We Wish You a Merry Christmas)

We wish we were passing Physics,
We wish we were passing Physics,
We wish we were passing Physics,
Well, there's always next year.

Mechanics is not Good tidings to us,
Mechanics and Newton can wait one more year.

We wish we were passing Physics...


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16. Another 12 Days of:

On the 1st day of physics, my F.A. said to me,
"Don' t take physics 203! "
Or, the 2nd day of physics, the department said to me,
 "Surprise, you're only one of fifteen "
Or, the 3rd day of physics, the problem sets were due; "You take number 1, you do number 3, and I’ll take number 2! "
Or, the 4th day of physics, the donuts we had some,
but no one went to colloquium!!
Or, the 5th day of physics, a take home test was seen,
for dinner no-doz and caffeine!
Or, the 6th day of physics, the timesheets  they were due;
for  each four hours' pay, we worked two!
Or, the  7t h day of physics, summer work began;
60 hour weeks getting a tan!
Or, the 13th day of physics, will you T. A. for me,
but must I share an, office with three?
On the '7th day of physics, we took the GRE;
it's grad school in, Grenada for me!!
Or, the 10th day of physics,
we were told we had some gall,
playing midnight soccer on the hall !
On the 11th day of physics, the theses all come due;
there were ten in September now there are only two!
Or, the 12th day of physics, we graduate on, time;
next year' s the unemployment line!
soccer at midnight,
grad school in Grenada,
fudging timesheets,
no‑doz and caffeine,
unemployment line,
two theses done,
sharing an office,
getting a tan,
colloquium,
you do number two,
one of fifteen,
and don’t take two   oh   three ! ! !
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