Tom McFadden - William Rowan Hamilton lyrics

CAYLEY (Derek Muller) How does the plastered Fourth-born Son of a law man in Dublin Dubbed an impressive polyglot young'un Wunderkind embarra**ed in a contest with a prodigious Vermonter Obtain Irish science's highest honour? LAGRANGE (Tom McFadden) The math scholar Chief astronomer alcoholic Burned a lot stronger By working a lot longer By starting a lot younger By being a savant and by thirteen Knew more languages than the Holy Father EULER (Coma Niddy) And every day while knaves were playing soccer and ogling babes Lost in the page he studied And built his knowledge At eighteen had gotten a spot at Trinity College The brother had mathematical sk**s set to astonish BRINKLEY (Hood Skalas) Then a shot at love came but Devastation reigned Our man saw his Catherine take another name The depression told him end it He fended it from his brain Then he wrote his first refrain A testament to his pain WORDSWORTH (Tom Zalatnai) William Wordsworth, his pal, said "This verse is just okay man Stick to mathematics and you'll never be a layman Do your calculation Stake kinetics as your claim And the world's gonna know your name What's your name man?" HAMILTON (Tim Blais) William Rowan Hamilton My name is William Rowan Hamilton And no one uses my quaternions But just you wait Just you wait NOETHER (Helen Arney) He tried extending the complex Found the next step fickle His kids would ask him "daddy can you multiply triples" "Not yet. I can only subtract and add back" COMPANY *He'd wedded one Helen but the heat of love lacked* AIRY (Simon Clark) Meanwhile he'd adopted an optimization view of light Following optics it drew him right To a new insight A path to dynamics No thought to habits or health He started computin' what Newton Never managed to himself SCHRÖDINGER (Hank Green) A beautiful and symmetric view Of matched momentum choosing Minimal action as his route But missing Catherine made him droop He started drinking Slinking to his office Getting rip roared Turning back to triplet Manipulation with no reward JACOBI (Baba Brinkman) Strolling with Helen When new inspiration calls him Add another letter See him now as he scrawls in the stone of a bridge Like a revolution ijk equals negative 1 COMPANY HAMILTON Where i-squared equals negative one i-j-k... And j-squared equals negative one i-j-k... And k-squared equals negative one i-j-k... Which equals (equals) HAMILTON I-J-K!! COMPANY William Rowan Hamilton! We are waiting on the bounds for you Cause your energy function generates the flow of Time oh! William Rowan Hamilton Operators that Lie commute With the symbol that bears your name Hold their own and oppose the grain Conserved, they'll always be the same oh! AIRY His versors form hypersphere See if you can plot em CAYLEY Invented vectors and scalars For when you dot em WORDSWORTH The alcohol destroyed his health And gout it finally got him EULER & LAGRANGE We grounded him WORDSWORTH & BRINKLEY Me, I counselled him CAYLEY & AIRY Me, I worked with him NOETHER & JACOBI We revamped him SCHRÖDINGER And me I adapted him for quantum COMPANY He'll make all physics Hamiltonian Just you wait! EULER What's your name man? WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON!