Helen Arney, and the magazine Chemistry World, and a whole bunch of friends, have added new bits to Tom Lehrer‘s song “The Elements.” The tune was written long ago by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and…). Here are videos of that version, and an earlier version in Japanese by relatives of Ig Nobel Prize winner Theo […]
Tag: elements
Family Name Frequency and Abundance of the Chemical Elements?
IS AMERICAN LAST NAME FREQUENCY INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO TERRESTRIAL ELEMENTAL ABUNDANCE? by E. R. Schulman and E. A. Schulman, Alexandria, Virginia Abstract Yes (provided radioactive gasses are ignored). 1. Introduction This year (2019) marks the 150th anniversary of Dmitri Mendeleev publishing the first recognizable periodic table in his paper “Relationship of Elements’ Properties to Their […]
DNA and “The Elements”, and two birthdays
Three days after James Watson (of eventual molecular-structure-of-DNA fame) was born, Tom Lehrer (eventual author and singer of “The Elements” and much more) was born. Make of that what you will. This month, each of them becomes 90 years old. Andrew Robinson wrote an appreciation of Tom Lehrer, in Nature magazine.
“Just think how many periodic tables you could put on my entire head”
Martyn Poliakoff (of the University of Nottingham) and his hair star in this epic video could be named “The Periodic Table is Etched onto One of Martyn Poliakoff’s Hairs”:
Rediscovered double Tom Lehrer performance of The Elements
This video of Tom Lehrer singing “The Elements”, in Copenhagen in or about 1967, is something we’d not seen before. And it may be the only recording of him also performing the earlier version of the song — a performance so rare that that Tom himself later half-forgot about it (Tom generously gave us permission […]
‘Poisoner’ author reviews Period Table Table inventor’s app
Deborah Blum, author of the book The Poisoner’s Handbook, reviews “The Elements“, the ipad app created by Theo Gray, the Ig Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the four-legged periodic table table: … Gray’s sequel to this success is a print book, Theodore Gray’s Element Vault, which includes actual samples of elements, such as gold leaf, and replicas of […]
Daniel Radcliffe sings Tom Lehrer
Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry Potter, sang Tom Lehrer‘s classic song “The Elements” on the Graham Norton show: (Thanks to Ig Nobel Prize winner—for creating the periodic table table— Theo Gray for bringing this to our attention.)
“The Elements”, Lehrerized & Grayed in Japanese
Theo Gray and Tom Lehrer collaborated to produce this video of a Japanese version of Tom’s masterpiece song The Elements. Theo Gray was awarded the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize in chemistry for gathering many elements of the periodic table, and assembling them into the form of a four-legged periodic table table. Tom Lehrer is Tom […]