I wrote this one day my senior year in High School. I forget exactly why I did it, but I think overwhelming boredom had something to do with it. Either that or temporary insanity.
Here it is:
The physics masters' ideas now well known
As small and massless particles are found
They push the larger players all around
And sight unseen their presence clearly shown.
The theorists all did give a heavy groan
As some of their ideas were run aground
Traject'ries changed so quick -- and naught a sound --
And strange collisions now had them all thrown*
Though only Bohr had such strange results seen
Recounted in the chem'stry books of old
Rutherford throwing alphas at his gold
Bohr's leptons soon changed our atomic view
Of these, Neutrinos forth begotten been**
Be seen with measurable mass, and flavors too.
* The apparent collisions between some particles and neutrinos threw the scientists for a loop.
** Bohr's atomic model featured electrons outside of the atomic nucleus. As electrons were studied further, several different electron "flavors" were found (muon and tau, in addition to the atomic electron), and these were discovered to each have analogous neutrinos. As it was discovered that these flavors could change, it was also determined that neutrinos had a measurable mass.
As small and massless particles are found
They push the larger players all around
And sight unseen their presence clearly shown.
The theorists all did give a heavy groan
As some of their ideas were run aground
Traject'ries changed so quick -- and naught a sound --
And strange collisions now had them all thrown*
Though only Bohr had such strange results seen
Recounted in the chem'stry books of old
Rutherford throwing alphas at his gold
Bohr's leptons soon changed our atomic view
Of these, Neutrinos forth begotten been**
Be seen with measurable mass, and flavors too.
* The apparent collisions between some particles and neutrinos threw the scientists for a loop.
** Bohr's atomic model featured electrons outside of the atomic nucleus. As electrons were studied further, several different electron "flavors" were found (muon and tau, in addition to the atomic electron), and these were discovered to each have analogous neutrinos. As it was discovered that these flavors could change, it was also determined that neutrinos had a measurable mass.
Pretty well done stuff; makes me wonder why I didn't do something similar for my classes. I wonder how my Journalism teacher would have responded to a sample article written entirely in Limerick.
ReplyDeleteWere I to have done such a thing, I suspect I'd get a response like:
ReplyDeleteThere was once an article done
Whose style was certainly fun
But the quality lacked
And to respond with tact
You certainly are no John Donne
(Actually I should add that my English teacher at the time could only stand to make the comment, "Well, it certainly follows the sonnet form...")
ReplyDelete"Well, it certainly follows the sonnet form..."
ReplyDelete... that sounds like sort of a backhanded compliment, doesn't it?
Well, that *was* how I interpreted it from him.
ReplyDelete