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The Quantum Tunnel
Science news and happenings
Volume 1, Number 1, March 13, 2010
39
A rock music journey into relativistic physics
David S. Latchman
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
When I heard the learn’d astronomerWhen the proofs, the figures, wereranged in columns before meWhen I was shown the charts and the di-agrams, to add, divide, and mea-sure themWhen I, sitting, heard the astronomer,where he lectured with much ap-plause in the lecture-roomHow soon, unaccountable, I became tiredand sickTill rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself In the mystical moist night-air, and fromtime to timeLook’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Walt Whitman
Introduction
When the subject of science comes up, many peo-ple identify with what the student in Walt Whit-man’s poem has to say, we see science as somethingabstract, boring and esoteric. If anything, it seemsthatscientistsaremoreinterestedincharts,diagramsand equations and simply unable to appreciate the beauty of the world around them. Who wants to bestuck in a boring lecture hall hearing about star for-mation, or sit in front of a computer crunching thenumbers that simulate a star’s shine, when you cango out and just look up and appreciate the majestyaround you? Now I know that several of the sciencegeeks out there will disagree with what was just saidand will argue that science
is
beautiful; that thereis just as much beauty in those equations and dia-grams. As you look up into the night sky, the theo-ries and explanations that science offers doesn’t takeaway from the beauty of a starry night but enhancesit. But if science is so aesthetically beautiful, whyhasn’t it been written in song or talked about in po-etry? Issciencesodry anddevoidofhumanemotionthat we are unable to connect with it on some level?Is it so far removed from the human condition? Theanswers may surprise you.
A Night at the Opera
In 1975, Queen recorded the song “’39”, written by Brian May, for their fourth studio album “ANight at the Opera”. It is very apparent that thesong lyrics and melody speaks of a soulful sepa-ration from one’s loved ones and the world but isthere more to the story? Before we begin to an-alyze the song we should first look to its writer.Brian was an astronomy PhD student at ImperialCollege studying the reflected light from interplan-etary dust and the velocity of dust in the planeof the solar system while teaching math and re-hearsing with his new rock band, Queen. Thoughhis PhD thesis was almost complete, circumstanceswould force Brian to explore other options; his stu-dent grant had dried up, Queen was becoming
Newsletter Contents:
39. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Super-heavy element 112 gets a name. . . . . 4
The Quantum Tunnel Newsletter Vol. 1, March 13, 2010successful and he felt he was being pulled in somany directions that something had to go. In theend, the PhD got chucked, much to his parent’sdismay, and science’s loss was rock music’s gain.Figure 1: A Night at the Opera – Queen (1975)But the song “’39” isn’t just a mournful story of loss or yearning. It is also a science fiction story thatcenters around the relativistic effect known as timedilation. This concept, deeply rooted in physics andfirst discovered by Albert Einstein in his 1905 AnnusMarabilispaper,“OntheElectrodynamicsofMovingBodies”,describestheeffectofaclockslowingdown,as seen by an observer, as it approaches the speed of light. In this paper, Einstein reconciles the paradoxthat Maxwell’s theory of electricity and magnetismposed with Newton’s laws of mechanics. So whatdoes this mean for the song? To best answer thisquestion,weturntoBrian’sresponseinhis1983Gui-tar Greats interview on BBC Radio One. Brian says:It’s a science fiction story. It’s thestory about someone who goes away andleaves his family and because of the timedilation effect, when you go away, thepeople on earth have aged a lot morethan he has when he comes home. He’saged a year and they’ve aged 100 yearsso, instead of coming back to his wife, hecomes back to his daughter and he cansee his wife in his daughter, a strangestory. I think, also, I had in mind a storyof Herman Hesse which I think is called‘The River’. A man leaves his hometownand has lots of travels and then comes back and observes his hometown fromthe other side of the river. He sees it in adifferent light having been away and ex-perienced all those different things. Hesees it in a very illuminating way, causeI felt a little bit like that about my homeat the time as well having been away andseen this vastly different world of Rockmusic. Totally different from the way Iwas brought up and I had those feelingsabout Home.So usually the song, I think peoplegenerally usually won’t admit it, butI think when most people write songsthere are more than one level to them.They’ll be about one thing on the surface but underneath they’re probably, evenunconsciously, trying to say somethingabout their own life, their own experi-ence. I know in my own stuff there issomething like that.
A Physics Problem
So we see the multi-faceted metaphor behind thesong though Brian does get one thing incorrect, theHerman Hesse poem isn’t “The River” but “ThePoet” but the central theme is correct as we will seefrom the song’s lyrics. The physicists amongst uswill recognize this isn’t just as a science fiction story but a physics problem as well and Brian has man-aged to do what few sci-fi stories have done; get thescience right. We can use clues in the song to deter-mine the speed at which our space-farers are going.For the mathematically anxious amongst you, I canassure you there is nothing more here than simplealgebra. The time dilation equation can be expressed
∆
t
=
∆
t
1
−
v
2
c
2
(1.1)where
∆
t
is the tick of the clock on Earth,
∆
t
is thetick of the clock of our travelers,
v
is the speed thetravelers are moving relative to Earth and
c
is thespeed of light. The lyrics to the song go
’39
In the year of ’39Assembled here the volunteersIn the days when lands were few.Here the ship sailed out into the blue andsunny mornin’,The sweetest sight ever seen. 5And the night followed day,And the storytellers sayThat the score brave souls insideFor many a lonely daySailed across the milky seas 10Ne’er looked back, never feared, nevercried.Don’t you hear my call
2
The Quantum Tunnel Newsletter Vol. 1, March 13, 2010Though you’re many years away?Don’t you hear me calling you? 15Write your letters in the sandFor the day I take your handIn the land that our grandchildren knew.In the year of ’39 20Came a ship in from the blue,The volunteers came home that day.And they bring good newsOf a world so newly born,Though their hearts so heavily weigh. 25For the earth is old and greyTo a new home we’ll away,But my love this cannot be,For so many years have goneThough I’m older but a year 30Your mother’s eyes from your eyes cry tome.Don’t you hear my callThough you’re many years away?Don’t you hear me calling you? 35Write your letters in the sandFor the day I’ll take your handIn the land that our grandchildren knew.Don’t you hear my call 40Though you’re many years away?Don’t you hear me calling you?All your letters in the sandCannot heal me like your hand,For my life 45Still ahead.Pity me.
Queen, written by Brian May
We can now examine the song as a physics prob-lem and determine the speed of the ship. Maybesome time in the future, mankind will learn to travelthe stars at speeds close to the speed of light. Un-fortunately, it’s nothing like we see with Star Trek’swarp drive but the physics is rooted in special rela-tivity. From lines1and20, we can tell the journey
takes a total of 100 years, let
∆
t
=
∆
t
=
=
1
1
−
v
2
c
2
⇒
v
=
0.99995
c
Solving for
v
shows that the travelers are moving at99.995% the speed of light; not quite the speed of light but very close. But the song goes much fur-ther, it doesn’t just describe the time dilation effect,it also discusses the very human implications of thismission.
The Poet and the Time Traveller
How does this contrast to Hesse’s “The Poet”? Arethere any similarities and if so, what are they?
The Poet
Only on me, the lonely one,The unending stars of the night shine,The stone fountain whispers its magicsong,To me alone, to me the lonely oneThe colorful shadows of the wanderingcloudsMove like dreams over the open country-side.Neither house nor farmland,Neither forest nor hunting privilege isgiven to me,What is mine belongs to no one,Theplungingbrookbehindtheveilofthewoods,The frightening sea,The bird whir of children at play,The weeping and singing, lonely in theevening, of a man secretly in love.The temples of the gods are mine also,and minethe aristocratic groves of the past.And no less, the luminousVault of heaven in the future is my home:Often in full flight of longing my soulstorms upward,To gaze on the future of blessed men,Love, overcomingthelaw, lovefrompeo-ple to people.I find them all again, nobly transformed:Farmer, king, tradesman, busy sailors,Shepherd and gardener, all of themGratefully celebrate the festival of the fu-ture world.Only the poet is missing,The lonely one who looks on,The bearer of human longing, the paleimageOfwhomthefuture, thefulfillmentoftheworldHas no further need. Many garlandsWilt on his grave,But no one remembers him.
Hermann Hesse
3
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