Math fun with song lyrics

Song-writer Bill Calhoun is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg University (where I also hung out for many years). He belongs, along with colleagues Erik Wynters and Kevin Ferland, to a band called "The Derivatives."  And Bill has granted permission for me to include several of his math lyrics (parodies) here. (In this previous post, we consider the connection between song parodies and mathematical isomorphism.)  My first Calhoun selection deals with difficult mathematical questions concerning classification of infinite sets and decidability.  Following that, later lyrics consider proving theorems and finding derivatives.

Questions You Can’t Ever Decide*      by Bill Calhoun

(These lyrics match the tune of  "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by Lennon and McCartney.)

Picture yourself in  a world filled with numbers,
But the numbers are really just words in disguise.
Gödel says “How can you prove you’re consistent,
If you can’t tell that this is a lie?”    

What is mathematics to animals?

In a playfully serious volume of verses by Eugene Ostashevsky we meet his alter ego, the "new philosopher" DJ Spinoza.  With the intelligence and bravery of the other philosopher-Spinoza (Baruch / Benedict, 1632 - 1677), Ostachevsky's Spinoza pokes a bit of fun at things that might be taken too seriously -- such as logic or mathematics or . . .  

Math lyrics -- Lehrer et al

Mathematicians with poetic tendency often use their word-talents to write song-lyrics rather than poems; a master of the song-writing art was/is Tom Lehrer.  As an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1940s,  Lehrer majored in mathematics; he is best known for songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s.  Here are Lehrer's lyrics for "The Derivative Song" -- written to be sung to the tune of "There'll Be Some Changes Made" (by Benton Overstreet, with original lyrics by Billy Higgins).

A poem of calculus (of ants on a worm)

Philip Wexler plays with the terminology of calculus in this poem:

     The Calculus of Ants on a Worm

     Swarming tiny
     bodies nibble
     away, no limits,

Poems of Calculus

In her thoughtful poem "Calculus" mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz writes of sharing with her students some of their subject's history--a drama enacted by two different sorts of mathematician.  Here are Glaz' opening lines: