Bruce Elliott

The graviton's something unique,
A particle many would seek.
To Earth we are stuck
It seems, more by luck,
For its coupling's exceedingly weak!

deBroglie, caught quite unawares,

Observed a mixed state of affairs:
'Twas Schroedinger's cat
Who quietly sat,
While running away down the stairs.

Implicit in Maxwell's equations
Are truly important relations.
While fields are unchanged,
Potentials may range,
Distinguished by gauge transformations.

The Past Isn't What it Used To Be

A professor of Physics named May
Complains of the classroom today,
"The problem, you know,
Is that they're too slow.
We were far better students than they."

His friend, a professor named Beecham,
Said "It's true, you don't seem to reach 'em.
But they're not to blame,
For they haven't the same
Class of teachers that we had, to teach 'em!"

A Brief History of Gravity

It filled Gallileo with mirth
To watch his two rocks fall to Earth.
He gladly proclaimed,
"Their rates are the same,
And quite independent of girth!"

Then Newton announced in due course
His own law of gravity's force:
"It goes, I declare,
As the inverted square
Of the distance from object to source."

But remarkably, Einstein's equation
Succeeds to describe gravitation
As spacetime that's curved,
And it's this that will serve
As the planets' unique motivation.

Yet the end of the story's not written;
By a new way of thinking we're smitten.
We twist and we turn,
Attempting to learn
The Superstring Theory of Witten!

'tHooft had the realization
Of couplings' peculiar relation.
He'd only to solve
Just how they evolve,
Performing renormalization.

The Particle Physics morass
Is stuck on the problem of mass.
If Higgs can be found,
We'll all come around.
Till then it's a pain in the neck.

Beware of the plasma fanatics,

They're prone to a fusion of antics
That generate heat
When hydrogens meet
With magnetohydrodynamics.
(well, YOU rhyme it!)

"The quark's a mysterious fellow!"
My advisor was oft prone to bellow,
"It's red, blue, or green,
(Though it's never been seen),
And certainly couldn't be yellow!"