NEWTON'S BIRTHDAY SONG


Started by Lee Gold, but revised and continued by Kate Gladstone and then continued yet again by Lee Gold
to the tune of "My Favorite Things", by Richard Rodgers, from "The Sound of Music."

published in Xenofilkia #98, December, 2004

Brachistochrone:
the curve between two points covered in the shortest time by a body moving without friction under a constant gravity; the curve of quickest descent.

"Are not gross bodies and light convertible into one another; and may not bodies receive much of their activity from the particles of light which enter into their composition? The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations." -- Isaac Newton (found on a webpage of his quotations) 

Prophets and prisms and planets in motion,              Lee
Pebbles I find by the shore of Truth's Ocean.           Kate
Fluxions that help me in my measurings --               Lee
These are a few of my favorite things.

Brachistochrone paths - a problem worth solving,        all Kate
For points on a surface that keeps on revolving -
Just minimize "t" - as a cycloid it swings -
These are a few of my favorite things ...

        When that Leibniz ... says I swiped his ...     all Kate
        Integrals, I'm sad --
        Until I try turning some lead into gold,
        And then I don't feel so bad! 

Astrology led me to Kepler and Euclid                   all Lee
Back in the days when I was a mere schoolkid.
Projectiles and pendulums; pi found in rings -
These are a few of my favorite things.

Curves that are cubic, and coins for the nation,        all Kate
Finding the Beast who infests Revelation,
Dates for the Pharaohs and Biblical kings -
These are a few of my favorite things.

        (Trans)mutating is elating                      all Lee
        Nature's happy when
        She watches how gross bodies turn into light
        And then they turn back again.

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