Sunday, November 16, 2008

1960s Rock Science

Ladies and Gentlemen, we all know the Beatles were great musicians, but what you may not have known is that they were also scientists. Paul McCartney is now trying to release an experimental track they laid down in the 1960s called "Carnival of Light," in which they wandered around the studio banging on all kinds of things and shouting random things. You may be wondering how that makes them scientists. I'll illuminate.

  • The track is "experimental." Scientists do experiments. Need I say more, I ask. No, I need not. But out of consideration for my readers, I'll tell more.
  • Sound is a wave. The song is a random assortment of sounds. Light is a wave\particle. The song is called "Carnival of Light." Clearly, light and sound are at least moderately similar from a physics standpoint.
  • Scientists recently managed to stop light and then restart it. The Beatles stop and start their sounds throughout the song.
If you read between the lines and analyze the similarities, clearly the scientists who stopped light were following on groundwork laid by the Beatles in the 1960s. The Beatles were hardcore particle physicists in their time, but due to their amazing popularity as singers, they decided the time was not right to come out as the brilliant nerds they were. After all, had they revealed themselves to be nerds then, they would have stopped selling records, and particle physics experimentation is crazy expensive. Not until the 1980s with the Hong Kong Cavaliers could a band be rockin' and rocket scientists. Even so, the Fab Four couldn't stand the idea of their hard work advancing human science going unused, so they slipped in references into their song "Carnival of Lights" in hopes of scientists deciphering the meanings and continuing their research. And now that contemporary science has finally caught up to their discoveries, the time is right for the song to go public. And for those asking why it couldn't be released earlier, don't forget that the song was written during the Cold War and the Beatles played all over the world. They couldn't risk the Russians getting the secrets to stopping light, lest they pull a caper of Lex Luthor proportions and block out the sun over the free world. That's the Beatles for you. Always looking out for democracy. Don't even get me started on Seargant Pepper as coded battle plans for our only successful major operation in Vietnam.
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And once more, we find ourselves one day older and one post wiser. Next time you listen to the Beatles, take a moment to really soak in the lyrics and ask yourself, what the glass onion really was.

You have been informed.

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