Science in Music

When science and music combine, a beautiful thing happens. Take a look at these videos, and maybe these songs will teach you a little something about the way the universe works.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN lab over in Europe was finished recently, and physicists think that it will help answer questions about things we don't currently understand in particle physics. What the LHC does (and particle accelerators in general) is get particles, often protons, moving at extremely high speeds with lots of energy. Then they smash them into each other. The protons break apart into a shower of other particles. Physicists examine these other particles to try to determine what the universe is made of.

Learn more specifics of the LHC via rap!

And with this video you can watch They Might Be Giants teach us about the Sun.

For more calculus-based fun, check out the Gauss's Law Song. Gauss's Law is a law describing how electric charge is related to electric field. In the Gauss's Law Song, physics professor Walter F. Smith explains how to do some of the math behind the law. Many more physics songs can be found at his website.

Lastly, this cute little cartoon tells us the seven things necessary for something to be alive.

Octopuses are Cool

Upon reading about how a German octopus is predicting the outcomes of World Cup matches, I started thinking about how cool octpuses are. The main reasons they are cool is their intelligence, their ability to change color, and their ability to squeeze into tiny spaces.

Octopuses can be as smart as dogs, and are the most intelligent of the cephalopods. There have been numerous stories of captive octopuses leaving their tanks to grab a snack in a nearby tank, then going back home. I have heard stories of pet octopuses recognizing their owners, playing with toys, and solving puzzles.

Here's an octopus opening a screw-top bottle.




And here's an octopus forcing itself through a tiny hole, because it has no bones.




And now one of the coolest videos of an octopus changing its appearance that you'll see all day.