## 7. COMBINED SCIENCES

#### Subsections

- 7. combined sciences - general
- 7.1 combined sciences poetry
- 7.2 compare scientists (using lions, elephants, primes etc.)
- 7.3 remarkable scientific sayings from school children and students

### 7.1 COMBINED SCIENCES - POETRY

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physics chemistry engineering
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    From: Tom Dowling <tdowling@lsc.org>
    I work at Liberty Science Center, a hands-on museum in New Jersey.  I wrote
    a pile of scientist and inventor limericks for our newsletter, most never
    got published because there were too many.  They focus mostly on history of
    science & technology.

                         A Collection of Little Limericks
                          About Scientists and Inventors

    The explanation or background in regular type, followed by the "poem" in bold face.

    Massage your brain with these,
    Then spread the Limerick disease,
    Via the net,
    To see what we'll get,
    Beware, your computer might sneeze.

    Special Category: Thomas Edison
    Thomas Edison, Working in Menlo Park, NJ (now part of Edison Township)
    perfected incandescent lighting in 1879, improving on Swan's (and other's)
    efforts.  He then devised the electrical generation and distribution system
    to make it useful.

    Tom Edison thought he was bright,
    He invented the electric light,
    Then, to his chagrin,
    When turning in,
    His wife said, "I'll be reading tonight."

    Samuel F. B. Morse, otherwise a painter, invented a "magnetic telegraph" in
    1837 and with his assistant Alfred Vail later developed Morse code.

    Morse was a man of deep thought,
    And a painter whose art wasn't bought,
    He invented a key,
    And his fame was to be,
    Tapping out: "What hath god wrought?"

    Alexander Graham Bell's original focus was on hearing and speech.  He (is
    said to have) uttered the famous words (abbreviated below) in 1876, while
    attempting to improve the telephone of 1875.  He had spilled sulfuric acid
    from a battery into his lap.

    Bell wanted to help the deaf hear,
    And was building an electric ear,
    Then acid he spilled,
    Where he wasn't thrilled,
    And quickly called, "Watson, come here."

    The Wright brothers made the world's first powered, controlled airplane
    flight on September 15, 1904, with Orville at the controls.  They chose a
    breezy, sandy location at Kitty Hawk, NC to assist take off and cushion
    landings.

    We all know the brothers Wright,
    And credit them with first flight.
    They soon had to land,
    With their butts in the sand,
    But their wires and sticks were all right.
    [or, Thank goodness their props were on tight.]

    Special Category: Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein proposed his theory of special relativity in 1905, followed
    by general relativity in 1916.  Time dilation is one of the consequences of
    motion at relativistic speeds.

    Einstein proposed that time,
    Was flexible and most sublime,
    Go near fast as light,
    And to you delight,
    You'll get home while still in your prime.

    Antoine-Henri Becquerel discovered natural radioactivity from uranium in
    1896.  A uranium compound exposed a photographic plate through a lightproof
    wrapper.

    Becquerel was having a go,
    At what made substances glow,
    With uranium he played,
    And discoveries he made,
    But that was the end of his show.

    Cyrus Hall McCormick invented his harvesting machine, the reaper, in 1831.
    The reaper revolutionized farming, by allowing fewer workers to operate
    larger farms.

    McCormick invented the reaper,
    And the wheat fields grew wider and deeper,
    The farmers got lazy,
    And drank themselves hazy,
    But his gadget was still a keeper.

     Nicolas-Léonard-Sadi Carnot published Reflections on the Motive Power of
    Fire, in 1824, the first scientific analysis of steam engines, laying the
    foundations of thermodynamics.

    Carnot performed quite a feat,
    He developed a cycle complete,
    From torrid to cold,
    His theories do hold,
    And thus he's remembered in heat.

    James Naysmith designed the steam hammer in 1838 to forge a huge wrought
    iron paddle shaft for a ship.  The hammer was belatedly patented in 1843,
    after copies of his invention had already been made.

    Scotsman Nasmyth was said,
    To have hammers inside of his head,
    While others laughed,
    He forged a great shaft,
    By pounding it while it was red.

    William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invented the first transistor, at Bell Labs, in New Jersey, in 1948.

    Schockley, Brattain and Bardeen,
    Commanding electrons unseen,
    Made vacuum tubes,
    Fit only for rubes,
    And those who think progress obscene.

    Special Category: Marie Curie
    Marie Sklodowska Curie and her husband Pierre Curie discovered radium and
    polonium in 1898.  They both suffered from radiation injuries while
    purifying the highly radioactive element radium.

    Madame Curie loved Pierre,
    And together found elements rare,
    But they stood way to close,
    And got quite a dose,
    And suffered from falling of hair.

     Alfred Bernhard Nobel invented dynamite in1866.  He later invented
    gelatin-dynamite and thus founded an explosives dynasty.  His endowment
    funds the Nobel Prizes.

    Rare medals recall Nobel,
    Who thought dynamite to be swell,
    He mixed "nitro" with dust,
    For a product to trust,
    So we could all blow each other to hell.
    [or, For warfare and mining as well.]

    Louis Temple, an African-American blacksmith, invented the "Temple Toggle"
    harpoon, which revolutionized whaling in 1848.  The toggle harpoon would
    not cut itself free, thus reducing the number of lost whales.

    In whaling days Temple was king,
    His harpoon had a terrible sting,
    It made sad predations,
    On the noble cetaceans,
    And extinction it nearly did bring.

    Garret A. Morgan, an African-American inventor, patented a forerunner of
    the modern traffic signal in 1923.

    Morgan's ideas were so great,
    'Though he suffered racism and hate,
    An invention that's vexing,
    And sometimes perplexing,
    His revenge is our traffic light wait.

    Crompton's mule was one of the machines that revolutionized the production
    of cloth in the eighteenth century; he invented the mule in 1779, combining
    Hargreaves' spinning jenny and Arkwright's water frame.  Displaced workers
    opposed these inventions.

    Crompton invented the mule,
    A serious yarn spinning tool,
    It put many poor slobs,
    Right out of their jobs,
    And today this is still the rule.

    Special Category: Louis Pasteur
     Louis Pasteur is well known for his development and first human use of the
    rabies vaccine on July 6, 1885.  His lesser-known early work was in optical
    isomers, compounds that twist light left or right depending on their exact
    molecular configuration.

    Louis Pasteur, in his day,
    Studied compound that swing either way,
    No ifs, ands or maybes,
    He paused to beat rabies,
    Because isomers could stand the delay.

    Nikola Tesla developed the first AC induction motor in 1888 and with George
    Westinghouse developed the modern AC electrical system.  He built a huge
    tower at Wardencliffe (NY) in a failed test of wireless, high frequency
    electric power.  Today, Tesla has become a cult figure, with fringe
    enthusiasts linking him to UFO's, time travel and anti-gravity machines.

    Tesla thought himself greatest of all,
    His "juice" is what comes from your wall,
    An Edison rival,
    Who's had a revival,
    Thought the Wardencliffe tower did fall.

    Special Category: James Watt
    Thomas Newcomen developed the first "atmospheric" steam engine in about
    1712. It was massively inefficient and was quickly supplanted when James
    Watt's designs arrived in 1765. Watt's engine was inspired by his efforts
    to repair a Newcomen machine.

    Newcomen thought he would try,
    To build something to suck the mines dry,
    It ate coal by the ton,
    And was trouble to run,
    'Till someone named Watt happened by.

    Special Category: Blaise Pascal
     Evangelista Torricelli invented the mercury barometer in 1643.  Blaise
    Pascal actually made the mountain ascent, shortly after news of the
    discovery reached France.

    Nobody recalls Torricelli,
    They think it might come from the deli,
    Pascal then climbed,
    Upon mountains rimed,
    With a barometer strapped to his belly.

    Howard Hughes, son of the inventor of the tri-cone oil well drill bit, was
    an aviator and aircraft inventor.  His famous "Spruce Goose" a seaplane
    built mainly of plywood is still the largest (320 foot wingspan) airplane
    ever. It flew just once, on November 2, 1947.

    There was once a flyer named Hughes,
    With many strange airplanes to use,
    His Goose was a riot,
    But he really did fly it,
    Relying on plywood and glues.

    Henry Ford developed the modern assembly line in the fist decade of the
    20th century.  Carl Fredrich Bentz developed the first working gasoline
    automobile in 1885, much earlier than Ford's first (1893).

    Ford did not invent the car,
    The Germans were quicker by far,
    But he found a way,
    To make hundreds a day,
    And that's how things got as they are.

    Igor Ivanovich Sikorski built the first functional helicopter, the VS-300
    in 1939.  He was an aviation pioneer and previously built the first
    multi-engine aircraft.

    Sikorski perfected the chopper,
    With rotors and engines most proper,
    With blades in a whirl,
    He could pick up his girl,
    And fly to place he could drop her.

    Amedeo Avogadro originated the key hypothesis in the molecular theory of
    gasses beginning with an 1811 paper.  Later scientists including Perrin
    (1909) and Millikan (1917) worked towards accurate determinations of N0,
    (Avrogado's number), now held to be 6.022045 x 1023.

    Avogadro conceived a number,
    Used to make Chem' students slumber.
    He cast atoms and moles,
    In mathematical roles,
    Which give us such pains to remember.

     Heinrich Rudolph Hertz demonstrated electromagnetic waves in 1888.
    Gugliemo Marconi took out the first (UK) patent on radio in 1896.  Karl
    F. Braun invented the crystal receiver, and shared the Nobel Prize (1909)
    with Marconi.

    Marconi sent signals through air,
    On waves of which Hertz was aware,
    With sparkers and bristles,
    On galena crystals,
    'Till radios were found everywhere.

    John Phillip Holland, working in Paterson, NJ, developed the first modern
    submarines. The Fenian Ram was an experimental 3-man boat of 1881.  The
    Plunger was to be the first diesel sub, but was never finished, c. 1901.

    The Plunger and Fenian Ram,
    Were two boats that just barely swam,
    They were Holland's folly,
    But gee-whiz and golly,
    Soon navies their offspring would damn.

    Robert Hooke, a brilliant and versatile scientist, is remembered for his
    Micrographia of 1665, a work containing images of microscopic creatures and
    an "undulatory" (wave) theory of light.

    Old Hooke, he looked at flea,
    And others that bite you and me,
    With pictures and words,
    Described cork and curds,
    And the parasites of bird and bee.

    Special Category: Isaac Newton
     Newton devised his famous laws of motion between 1684 and 1686.
    Although he had the ideas earlier (1665-6). Newton shares credit for the
    calculus with Willhelm Gottfreid Leibniz (published 1684) but in their day
    there was much acrimony between them.

    Newton was brilliant of mind,
    A genius of rarest kind,
    His new laws of motion,
    Caused quite a commotion,
    But Leibniz shared his best find.

     Leo Szliard demonstrated the nuclear fission chain reaction of U-235 while
    working with Walter Zinn at Columbia University in 1939.  He persuaded
    Einstein to write the famous letter to Roosevelt.  Szliard joined Fermi on
    the first nuclear reactor in 1942, and turned to biophysics after the war.

    Do you know Leo Szliard?
    He never though physics was hard.
    Then scientist-spooks,
    Stole the plans to the nukes,
    So shelters we built in our yard.

    In Massachusetts, Robert Hutchings Goddard designed and flew the first
    practical liquid fuel rocket in 1926.  Supported by a Smithsonian grant, he
    moved on to test ever-larger rockets in the desert near Roswell, NM.
    Goddard was the first to work out the physics of a manned moon mission, but
    did not live to see it done.

    Rockets were launched in Roswell,
    A place that is hotter than hell,
    They say men from space,
    Have crashed in the place,
    Where Goddard's old missiles once fell.

    Willhelm Röentgen discovered X-rays (sometimes called Roentgen rays in his
    honor) in 1895 while experimenting with Crookes (electrical discharge)
    tubes.  The medical uses were almost immediately appreciated.

    The integument used to so hide,
    The organs and bones deep inside,
    'Till Röentgen discovered,
    Rays that uncovered,
    Whatever was wounded, save pride.

    Sir Fredric Banting, a surgeon and Charles Best, a physiologist isolated
    insulin in November of 1921.  The gathering of flies at the sugary urine of
    dogs that had undergone pancreatectomy was a crucial clue.

    Researchers Banting And Best,
    Were doing a pancreas test,
    They saw the flies huddle,
    At a sugary puddle,
    And with insulin the world was blessed.

    Clarence "Kelly" Johnson was one of the world's greatest aircraft
    designers.  He created the P-38 of WWII, the F-104, the U-2 and the Mach 3+
    SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft of c. 1964.

    "Kelly" could p*ss off [or, torment] the Reds,
    With his sleek titanium sleds.
    The swiftest of Migs,
    Seemed slow as pigs,
    When the Blackbird flew over their heads.

    Alan Mathison Turing, a British mathematician described a "Turing Machine"
    in 1937 and the "Turing Test" in 1950.  During WWII he worked at Bletchley
    Park on electromechanical computers that helped defeat the supposedly
    invulnerable Nazi "Enigma" ciphers.  His top-secret clearance was later
    revoked because of his sexual orientation.

    Turing was scorned in his day,
    When it wasn't OK to be gay,
    But his electronic brain,
    Gave Hitler a pain,
    Taking the cloak of enigma away.

    John Harrison, English, (1693-1776) was a horologist (clock maker).  He
    sought the Longitude prize, of £20,000 for a method of determining a ship's
    position at sea.  He built several chronometers, from 1735 on, to the
    famous No.4 (1757) a mere 5 inches in diameter.  Harrison was finally
    awarded the Longitude prize in 1773.  For the whole story, see The
    Illustrated Longitude, by Dava Sobel, now available as an illustrated
    edition, too.

    For ages, the ships on the sea,
    Could not reckon where they might be,
    Till Harrison's eyes,
    Saw the longitude prize,
    A true clock for the Admiral-ty.

    Thomas W. Dowling

    July 5-12, 2000, Edited 1-30-2001

physics chemistry
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    Inspired, perhaps, by the Unabomber, reader Chris Marks composed
    three original scientific limericks with the common theme of
    "Explosions of Various Sizes". They appear, for easy reference, in
    order ofincreasing magnitude of destruction:

            A cautious young chemist named Mound
            Was surprised (but not hurt) when he found
                    That A mixed with B
                    In the presence of C
            Made a hole (ringed with dirt) in the ground.

    [note; in this limerick, (r) represents the "registered" symbol]
            A scientist working at Sandia(r)
            Found a way to make larger bombs handier.
                    The result of a test
                    In the desert Southwest
            Turned the land close at hand even sandier.

            Great minds have been known to recite,
            Or in papers they publish, to write
                    That before time began
                    There occurred a Big Bang --
            But the theory has never been quite
                                                                    completed.

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    From: jcamara@jet.es (Javier Camara)

    Tell me why the stars do shine,
    Tell me why the ivy twines,
    Tell me what makes skies so blue,
    And I'll tell you why I love you.

    Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
    Tropisms make the ivy twine,
    Raleigh scattering make skies so blue,
    Testicular hormones are why I love you.
    -- From the Joke Book of Isaac Asimov

physics chemistry biology
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    From: Mini-air 2000-01-10
                         AIRhead SciFaiku -- The 1st Load

    Last month we made the mistake of asking for new poetry that is
    compressed, intriguing, and about science. Many of you made the
    mistake of writing and sending some. Here is the first selection
    of this non-art non-form called Scifaiku:.

    Test tubes -- don't listen
    To taunts. They're just trying to
    Get a reaction
    	--Alice Waugh

    Repulsive pole!
    You give me but half
    A moment
    	--Steve Brunt

    My red, ripe tomato
    has altered genetics...
    What smells like fish?
    	--Bob Wakulich

    I have posted my
    Findings on a friends web site
    So I must be right
    	--David Emigh

    Uncle Henry's wife
    Broke her hip. A victim of
    Auntie gravity
    	--Gary Hallock

    2000-02-07	More Lamentable SciFaiku

    The flow of bad new poetry -- poetry that is compressed,
    intriguing, and about science -- is undiminished. We must dispose
    of it somehow. Our experimental method is to dump it on you. Here
    is another load:

    Tiny, ancient mariner
    cast adrift on Chaos' sea;
    Cap'n Higgs' bos'n wades ashore.

    Barbara Stewart
    My cleaning fluid
    Lacks argon thirty-seven:
    Missing neutrinos!
    	--Eric Schulman

    Centrifuge was set
    Too high. Uh-oh -- now I see
    Bugs climbing the walls.
    	-- Alice Waugh

    Butterly waggles
    wings in China garden. Six months.
    Win98 doesn't crash. Awe.
    	--John L. Wilson

    My twin is ancient
    Tricked into staying at home
    While I toured the stars
    	-- David Wall

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#### Subsections

- 7. combined sciences - general
- 7.1 combined sciences poetry
- 7.2 compare scientists (using lions, elephants, primes etc.)
- 7.3 remarkable scientific sayings from school children and students

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