All the forces we've discovered seem to be almost the same;
But there's one that wrecks the picture, can you guess which is to blame?
When you heat up any matter the first four put on a show
But gravity sucks you know!
Faraday played with a magnet - making electricity
And the weak and strong can join them - seems to be simplicity
But the other force of nature is too weak, it has to go!
For gravity sucks you know!
If you do some calculations, and you know your QCD,
You can make your quarks stay bounded, single ones just can't be free,
But although we search for bosons and accelerators grow;
Still gravity sucks you know.
Are there seven new dimensions so it's power ebbs away,
As the fans of superstringing always passionately say?
Or is it simply that there's some things that the clever sods don't know,
As gravity seems to show?
Author notes
There are, we are told, four fundamental forces in nature, Ørsted, Faraday and Maxwell showed that electricity and magnetism were fundamentally connected, Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam showed that the "weak nuclear force", the force that breaks atoms in radioactive decay, was another related force, and Quantum Colour Dynamics is a theory that seems to let the "strong nuclear force" join in the game, that's the force that holds quarks in place in protons and neutrons.
Nobody has found a way to make gravity fit. Einstein's theories of relativity fit the facts extremely well but they are not in tune with the quantum mechanical model that explains almost everything else. Superstring theory is the leading contender for joining it all up.
Please tell me honestly what you think, good or bad.
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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We ladies always know "That gravity sucks you know", when some things above our equator, in time begin to lean south.
My uncle was an astrophysicist, but still, a physicist. Thank you so for the lesson in rhyme!
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another piece for learning.
when your through tutoring lane
let me know, then maybe I can learn something
i didnt know
Passions
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I definitely think you should have gone into the teaching profession ... at least your students may have had some idea about the subject ... me included!
Another good scientific poem.
Sue
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I think the key is in the penultimate line.
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wow. I wish I had had you to tutor me
I love learning new things, especially when put into the form of excellent poetry
L
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"gravity sucks". A shameless pun, which may however serve well enough as an explanation of gravity for those whose education stopped short of mastering Einstein's theories of relativity.
The issues raised in this poem implicitly raise another. What exactly does it mean when you hear, as you sometimes do, someone described as a "force of nature"? Could it be a sly way of saying that he or she sucks?
As for joining up all the fundamental forces, I have found a marvellous solution, but there's not space in the margin of this commentary box to set it down. Hehehehe. Remind me to get back that book on Fermat that I lent.
You are too much a master of meter for the runaway length of your penultimate line to be due to carelessness. I read it as an evocation of giving up on the conundrum and abandoning any pretence that we have found complete order in Nature.
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In my voice, each long line is in tetrameter, the first eleven being anapaest, fourth paeon, fourth paeon, fourth paeon, (didiDUM dididiDUM dididiDUM dididiDUM) the final long line also starts with a fourth paeon, slightly awkward I admit, I'll see if I can fix it, but for me the feet have always mattered more than the syllables.
Incidentally I hear the final lines as termeter diDUMdidi DUM diDUM (second paeon, single stressed syllable, iamb) and I bet all the other meter fans on site will argue with me on that one!!!
Overall not really my usual meter, Thanks for your kind words and for the hugely enjoyable comment
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Sounds Scientific.
I really could not flow with this one. It looked too technical and scientific for my understanding. Even the notes too. You really did not make this one for all of us. Dave
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Well this is a bit of scientific frolicking fun my friend, but I have to ask about the wording in S2-L2 it just doesn't seem to make sense to me.
"And the weak and strong can join them seems to be simplicity"
Maybe "that" instead of "and" I have no idea if this is in iamb because I wouldn't know one if it bit me in the ass, but that line just doesn't do it for me.
Scott
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I may need to add some punctuation, I suck at that as badly as gravity
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