the einstein and the eddington

This nonsense poem (which is based on Lewis Carroll’s " The Walrus and the Carpenter" in "Through the looking-glass") was written by Dr. W. H. Williams (who shared an office with Eddington) for a faculty club dinner on the eve of Eddington's departure from Berkeley in 1924.
Source: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/2_1.html#subindex

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He proposed the theory of relativity and also made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and cosmology. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect and "for his services to Theoretical Physics".
Source: Wikipedia

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (December 28, 1882 – November 22, 1944) was arguably the most important astrophysicist from the early 20th century. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity that can be radiated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honour. One of his papers announced Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world.
Source: Wikipedia

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Read the poem below and then do an activity about it. Finally, do some writing yourself and see texts written by other readers.

The Einstein and the Eddington
by Dr. W. H. Williams

The sun was setting on the links,
The moon looked down serene,
The caddies all had gone to bed,
But still there could be seen
Two players lingering by the trap
That guards the thirteenth green.

The Einstein and the Eddington
Were counting up their score;
The Einstein's card showed ninety-eight
And Eddington's was more.
And both lay bunkered in the trap
And both stood there and swore.

I hate to see, the Einstein said;
Such quantities of sand;
Just why they placed a bunker here
I cannot understand.
If one could smooth this landscape out,
I think it would be grand.

If seven maids with seven mops
Would sweep the fairway clean
I'm sure that I could make this hole
In less than seventeen.
I doubt it, said the Eddington,
Your slice is pretty mean.

Then all the little golf balls came
To see what they were at,
And some of them were tall and thin
And some were short and fat,
A few of them were round and smooth,
But most of them were flat.

The time has come, said Eddington,
To talk of many things:
Of cubes and clocks and meter-sticks
And why a pendulum swings.
And how far space is out of plumb,
And whether time has wings.

I learned at school the apple's fall
To gravity was due,
But now you tell me that the cause
Is merely G_mu-nu,
I cannot bring myself to think
That this is really true.

You say that gravitation's force
Is clearly not a pull.
That space is mostly emptiness,
While time is nearly full;
And though I hate to doubt your word,
It sounds like a bit of bull.

And space, it has dimensions four,
Instead of only three.
The square of the hypotenuse
Ain't what it used to be.
It grieves me sore, the things you've done
To plane geometry.

You hold that time is badly warped,
That even light is bent:
I think I get the idea there,
If this is what you meant:
The mail the postman brings today,
Tomorrow will be sent.

If I should go Timbuctoo
With twice the speed of light,
And leave this afternoon at four,
I'd get back home last night.
You've got it now, the Einstein said,
That is precisely right.

But if the planet Mercury
In going round the sun,
Never returns to where it was
Until its course is run,
The things we started out to do
Were better not begun.

And if before the past is through,
The future intervenes;
Then what's the use of anything;
Of cabbages or queens?
Pray tell me what's the bally use
Of Presidents and Deans.

The shortest line, Einstein replied,
Is not the one that's straight;
It curves around upon itself,
Much like a figure eight,
And if you go too rapidly
You will arrive too late.

But Easter day is Christmas time
And far away is near,
And two and two is more than four
And over there is here.
You may be right, said Eddington,
It seems a trifle queer.

But thank you very, very much,
For troubling to explain;
I hope you will forgive my tears,
My head begins to pain;
I feel the symptoms coming on
Of softening of the brain.

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Your turn

Write a poem about physics or science. Send us your texts.

Your texts

The Planting

Look closely at the soundless
mobs of bees drifting among the marigolds.
Their pollen sacs are swollen,
heavy with the male seed that sighs
between a yellow bed
and the shadow of an ovum's room.

Notice my trowel too,
how I entrust its business end with the soil.
This is the easy part,
the earth coolly tender from last night's rain.
Its skin peeled back,
the ground yawns and stretches,

its feelers ticking faintly, tasting sun.
I crouch like a microscope, hovering
over the hole to watch the insects watching me.
I should have made a clank, intrusion
of clutch and gear, all the mental levers working limbs,
eye blink, and the harsh ploughing of the jaw.

But I have no voice for this,
and framed in a blinding sun these telescoping arms
must orbit unfathomed (their intentions
masked by silver mirrors reflecting clouds)
while tense plates of muscles
shift and compel my tectonic grip

to rock with a slow, elemental motion.
Then, as I spoon phosphate and lime,
ants scurry about their shattered room,
specks in Brownian motion
scattered, nonplussed,
and protesting with the clay.

Imagine my obsession
as I mate earth with roots green-tipped
and tumid with life, their cogwheels
straining to lock teeth inside the ancient place
(near my feet)
which I have prepared.

Water rushing down the sluice
disappears as each cell greedily fills its cask.
The plant is full of sweet wine drained
from a table held atilt, a greenhouse drunk
that thinks he's the only game in town
as he unpacks his limbs.

A stranger to these parts,
he quickly branches into my brain
where cardinals pluck the fruit from pedicels,
where plumes of inflorescence
are ravished in shadows of the old woods
which recede,

and where trembles of dispute
tighten the metaphysical throat through which I breathe,
alternately stripping or quickening my confidence
in a world, grounded in weeds,
that watches a plant flex its muscles
but speaks in the inaudible voice I am trying to explain.

All alone in their hive,
Cyprian queens and domestic drones
make sterile love. And there is no cure
as flowers chaste and drawstring tight against the bee's
stingless probe are turning from the garden
that is spading over and over.

Daniel E. Wexler

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From "Fields"

there's so much beauty in science that alliances
collapse and perhaps
cease to be abstract
and become one with my wife
alive i dive into solitude again and there's no end
cause without infinity nothing exists
so i persist

the senses perception is past conception will last
the vast ignorance, delivers the difference
between reflecting gases in front of dark space and the sky

Marco Mahler

Marco Mahler writes "These are song lyrics. The music's at http://www.marcomahler.com".

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"1's and O's"

subliminal nation
Looking for gravitation
so now i've quit eating light bulbs and snacks
i've had it with those slacks
like an astronaut on a sailing boat, or eating bagels with tom joad
human cowbells, in biological computer cells
Raindrops on your head while your swimming
and me grinning by the piers with the deers
you know, she's just so right on, she comes on so strong

i wanna hide in a goosebump
ride around on a sneaker stump
breath through borrowed lungs
eat fresh humdrums
green with an elephant
challenged like an infant
infiltrated while integrated
usually developing limbs at some distance from the ground
I hear simple speed and that feeds all needs
while
one 72nd of all gray matters, that matters, are flattered
and dive

one dimensional things out of chronology
american folk music anthology
childlike elevation, waiting for salvation
a self made active brilliance, for millions, like ants chasing ants,
like cows with hay fever, and maniac weavers
the fruits of the roots
to become the roots of the fruits
the ankle high culture is coming through the woods
coming on in loops

press control g for go
communication can be broken down into ones and o’s

Marco Mahler

Marco Mahler writes "These are song lyrics. The music's at http://www.marcomahler.com".

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"Focused Hokuspokus"

focused hokuspokus
singing like a locust
outdated concepts
accept precepts
single celled organism
immortality and mechanism
creative speed
and the need to feed
the reaction to the reaction to the reaction
when it's just a fraction
it seems nuts
but we peel 'em down to their guts
tactility and sound
the moon comes up and the sun goes down

think tank
think blank
nip nap
nap time
strawberries like to travel
in the wintertime
two oars and me
lame horse and a tree
multitasking
if someone should be asking
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
shovel out the night
or just turn on the light
it comes as it comes
with laces and crumbs
what a mind of frame
in a game of time

ding ding
your left foot is ringing
rhythmic coffee hand shaking
faking the raycon sly
man looking to the left
watching for his theft
best viewed in slow motion
with plenty of brain lotion
and it’s go go go
To the banks of the river below
could I have three feet of milk
two pounds of sleep
four elbows to rub
and an omnipotential butter cup

money in a tree trunk
funny with our ski monks
chunks full of bedrocks
uncooked and jam locks
money in the sky
eye sight high
so fast we got a coughing night light
when the fun starts
that's when a time comes
man you wanna trade jobs

Marco Mahler

Marco Mahler writes "These are song lyrics. The music's at http://www.marcomahler.com".

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