Bohemian Gravity

September 17, 2013 10:03 PM

Tim Blais, a physics graduate student at McGill University, performs an a-capella version of his masters thesis to the tune of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

He has also posted the thesis in a more traditional format. You may have seen his previous work, Rolling in the Higgs. (Previously.)

posted by yuwtze (19 comments total)

Brilliant! The universe, if it was invented or created, had to be invented or created by an outlier bohemian with an infinite sense of humor, and finishing with "It really doesn't matter to me".
posted by Vibrissae at 10:19 PM on September 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks! I enjoyed this. I do wish his voice had a higher UV cutoff though-- oh well, we can't all be Roger Taylor..
posted by nat at 10:30 PM on September 17, 2013 [2 favorites]

You know, people can easily forget how much SCIENCE CAN ROCK!

headbangs and throws the horns

[gutturally] Space is like blacker than the blackest black...
posted by Samizdata at 11:56 PM on September 17, 2013

An a-capella version

You'll appreciate what an utter misery I am when I opine that hyphen abuse is the new grocer's thingamajig.
posted by Wolof at 2:44 AM on September 18, 2013 [4 favorites]

Fantastic... Thanks... There's no doubt this will be shown in my wife's classes today...

I'll throw this one in, in case anyone's missed it.. Calculus Rhapsody
posted by HuronBob at 2:45 AM on September 18, 2013

hyphen abuse

I've noticed that Dutch and German writers are sometimes eager to hyphenate in English, where it is not needed. This is often the only "tell", in their excellent English, that they are operating in a second language.
posted by thelonius at 6:16 AM on September 18, 2013

Ah, Wolof, quit holding-back and tell us how you really feel.



Ugh I feel dirty typing that.
posted by eritain at 6:44 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

This features a hand puppet too, hence it is ten times as awesome as originally suspected.
posted by Iosephus at 6:53 AM on September 18, 2013

A hand puppet of ALBERT EINSTEIN.
posted by epersonae at 8:40 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed this beyond all reason. I still don't understand it. But I now don't understand it in a much happier way.
posted by evilmomlady at 9:49 AM on September 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

That was great, but I'm worried that the amplituhedron might have made some of the lyrics obsolete.

What rhymes with amplituhedron?
posted by moonmilk at 10:35 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

That is the coolest thing I've seen today!
posted by michellenoel at 7:47 PM on September 18, 2013

You know, I just spent half an hour crafting an FPP around this, which I could have avoided if my searches had revealed that there was one already. Foolishly, I searched by the guy's last name, which is Blaise. Unnecessary hyphenation of a capella aside, maybe a mod could fix that? If we are going to celebrate the guy, we might as well get his name right. /grumble

Anyway, no word yet from what Dr. Brian May thinks of either Blaise's view or his singing.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:23 PM on September 19, 2013

Where did you figure out the spelling of his name? He runs a second youtube chanel under the name timblaismusic, and in the copy of his thesis he posted to Google docs (linked in the FPP), his name was listed as Timothy Blais, so I went with it. On the subject of hyphens, I probably should have known better, but I made a conscious effort to get his name right, and I don't know where I went wrong.
posted by yuwtze at 4:58 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Weird -- I found three or four articles online about him and they all went with 'Blaise.' Perhaps the initial one got it wrong and later stories perpetuated the error. My mistake.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:25 AM on September 20, 2013

This is brilliant.
posted by homunculus at 5:12 PM on September 20, 2013

moonmilk: "That was great, but I'm worried that the amplituhedron might have made some of the lyrics obsolete.

What rhymes with amplituhedron?"

In 3-dimensions, or more?

The 2-dimensional rhyme is left as an exercise to the reader.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:49 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

'Bohemian Gravity!' Is The Geekiest Cover You'll Ever See

The ultimate compliment though has to be Queen guitarist Brian May, who has a phD in Astrophysics, posting the video to his website.

All the attention seems to be having an effect on Blais. He tweeted Tuesday that he's going to take some time away from physics and pursue music for the next year. We can't wait to hear what comes next.

posted by homunculus at 11:47 AM on September 21, 2013

His physics supervisor is the father of my daughter's best friend. I am thus a mere 4 degrees of separation from nerdvana.
posted by googly at 2:02 PM on September 24, 2013