Sunday, November 12, 2006

Math-Love Songs

Guest Post from Weblog VJ Bill Gasarch

These aren't songs about loving math, these are love songs that use math as a way to express love. There are three that I know of (if you know more let me know). I'm not counting THEORY GIRL which is more of a Comp Sci song.

  1. The one that inspired this post:

    A finite simple group of order two by The Klein Four.

    Lyrics are great!
    Math is actually HARD!
    Singing quality–they shouldn't quit their day jobs.
    Video Quality–they just stand around singing.
    (Actually they are grad students so its not clear they have day jobs.)

  2. The Mathematics of Love

    From SQUARE ONE TV, an old PBS show about math (in a low level) that had some nice satires and songs in it. I watched it when I was younger (when I was 30 actually)
    Lyrics are nice!
    Math is easy.
    Singing quality is pretty good.
    Video quality–very good for content and quality.
    I think this IS their day job.

  3. 8 percent of my love

    Also from Square One.
    Lyrics are great!
    Math is easy.
    Singing quality is pretty good.
    Video quality–very good for content, but quality is fuzzy. (I've got a better quality video of this in my collection.)
    I think this IS their day job.

8 comments:

  1. Don't forget about the singing cowboy trio Riders in the Sky with their cover of "One, Two, Three, said the Miner."

    Bonus question: how many members of this famous cowboy trio have graduate degrees in nuclear physics?

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  2. There is the New Math by Tom Lehrer.

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  3. Holy Cow, I remember seeing "The Mathematics of Love" on TV when I was about 10. I even remembered that the main singer guy was Phoenician. I remember quite a few math songs from Square 1 TV including Weird Al's "Patterns"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szBpqlsn_o

    I also found these on YouTube (searching for Square 1 TV):

    "Ghost of a chance"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOk4cMfwsIY

    and

    "Percents"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KQTuvK67TA

    and

    "Nine, Nine, Nine"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1uPLHrenKY

    I would have to say that I enjoyed them more when I was ten.

    Grant S

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  4. You are forget all about Tom Lehrer

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  5. I much preferred the singing quality of the first video.

    On the general scientific side, there's Coldplay's Scientist:
    "I was just guessin' at numbers and figures,
    Pulling your puzzles apart.
    Questions of science, science and progress
    Do not speak as loud as my heart."

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  6. My kids have learned a LOT from a teacher who used to get them to sing their math equations. It's an amazing learning tool :-)

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