Hot X-ray emitting gas is red
Dark matter is blue.
Science is awesome,
And you want it to rhyme, too?!?
How do I match thee? Let me count the ways.
I match thee to the depth and breadth and height
my codes can reach, with triangles out of sight
in the best of seeing and only a little high-altitude haze.
I match thee to the level of everyday’s
astrometric need, by catalog and star-light.
I match thee freely, as we strive for Open Source copyright;
I match thee purely, as we turn to Bayes.
I match thee with a technique put to use
in my old PhD thesis, and with my undergrad days’ faith.
I match thee in the free time I seemed to lose
with my first postdoc, —- I match thee with the procedures,
routines, methods, of all my career! —- and, if the Review Board choose,
I shall but match thee better after tenure.
Alex Parker, CfA
“Some budding yeast I used to grow”, Krefman et al. (2013)
It’s been a while since Kate McAlpine’s amazing LHC rap, but here at Rhymes Like Science we appreciate the old school jams.
The Higgs boson is my name
which to you might sound insane
I came to put order in some mess
as I give every particle its mass
I’ve been hidin’ for billions of years
but now I am in every mouth and ears
My potential looks like a Mexican hat
and on it now you know where I’m at
They made me come out in a cave
and they’re really kind of brave
LHC is the machine at CERN
which did so well since on was turned.
It does not end with me getting to fame
Coz we’ve only started playing the game
You won’t wait long for some more fun
Coz in reality it’s only just begun
It took 50 years for an idea to test
Now for sure we can’t just rest
So much stuff we don’t know yet
We could call Hawking and make a bet
Most of the Universe is still obscure
We need imagination of the most pure
Our ignorance amounts to a grand 96%
So we hope for some strange particle event
To shed some light on the dark sector
We rely on some smart physics doctor
If all this doesn’t ring you any bell
Then there’s one more thing I’d like to tell
A weird connection called spinoff
that we should really not break off
What we discover due to curiosity
Turns out to benefit all humanity
Get then ready for some insanity
There’s something called hadron-therapy
That can cure people’s cancers
With best precision and least dangers
This is just one meaningful example
Of a pattern that is quite more ample
We explore Nature to understand
What is the picture the most grand
In trying to know of every piece its place
we get something you can’t quite replace
To discover a particle called Higgs Boson
We opened wide a brand new horizon
In conclusion that’s the story
Of why I deserve so much glory
So the moral of the story is
Don’t forget what my name is
- Umberto Cannella
In a quiet place
cavities may resonate
almost forever
- Brad Hansen (UCLA)
We Astronomers
We astronomers are nomads,
Merchants, circus people,
All the Earth our tent.
We are industrious.
We breed enthusiasms,
Honor our responsibility to awe.
But the universe has moved a long way off.
Sometimes, I confess,
Starlight seems too sharp,
And like the moon
I bend my face to the ground,
To the small patch where each foot falls,
Before it falls,
And I forget to ask questions,
And only count things
– Rebecca Anne Wood Elson (1960-1999)
The Astronomers
speak words of welcome out loud
but are exclusive
~ Jarita Holbrock (U. Arizona)
Science is coded.
Words slice the knot, revealing
wonders of cosmos.
~ Camille M. Carlisle (Sky & Telescope)
Dust around a star
A planet, comet or rock
Alien mining?
~ Rahul Patel (Stony Brook University)
A simulation;
Another simulation;
Maybe just one more
~ Luke Barnes (Sydney Institute for Astronomy)
The dust in Doradus
glowing red in Spitzer
does it smell like LA?
~ David Ardila (NASA Herschel Science Center)
strong accretion
but poorly pointed
I get no detection
~ David Ardila (NASA Herschel Science Center)
Write, for example
“I ‘ve got 5 arcsec seeing”
these images suck
~ Harold Francke (U. Católica de Chile)
