Question: What do you get when you mix a cappella, sock puppets, string theory and Queen? Answer: The geekiest (and astonishingly good, musically speaking) cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" EVAR. Easily the greatest physics-themed cover of the classic we've ever heard. Seriously. The thing's a masterpiece.


To be fair, "Bohemian Gravity" may well be the only physics-themed version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" ever made, but that doesn't change the fact that it is very, very well done. The creation of McGill University Masters candidate Timothy Blaise (who posted this link to his recently submitted thesis, along with the video), the track does way more than touch on some of the more confounding elements of string theory; from a compositional standpoint, it also manages to be an outstanding cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody," full stop. Also, there's an Einstein sock puppet. Now who the hell can't get behind that?


The Trouble With String Theory Particle physics is to physics what big game hunting is to field biology. While theoretical… Read more

Check out the lyrics below. For more of Blais's musical work, hit up his YouTube Channel.

Is string theory right?

Is it just fantasy?

Caught in the landscape,

Out of touch with reality

Compactified

On S5 or T*S3



Space is a pure void

Why should it be stringy?

Because it's quantum not classical

Nonrenormalizable

Any way you quantize

You'll encounter infinity

You see



Quanta

Must interact

Via paths we understand

Using Feynman diagrams

Often, they will just rebound

But now and then they go another way

A quantum

Loooooop

Infinities will make you cry

Unless you can renormalize your model

Of baryons, fermions

And all other states of matter



Curved space:

The graviton

Can be thought of as a field

But these infinities are real

In a many-body

Loop diagram

Our results diverge no matter what we do...

A Quantum Soup (any way you quantize)

Kiss your fields goodbye

Guess Einstein's theory wasn't complete at all!



I see extended 1-D objects with no mass

What's their use? What's their use? Can they give us quark plasma?

What to minimize?

What functional describes this

String?

Nambu-Goto! (Nambu-Goto)

Nambu-Goto! (Nambu-Goto)

How to quantize I don't know

Polyakov!

I'm just a worldsheet, please minimize me

He's just a worldsheet from a string theory

Reperametrized by a Weyl symmetry!



Fermi, Bose, open, closed, orientable?

Vibrations

Modes! They become particles (particles!)

Vibrations

They become particles (particles!)

Vibrations

They become particles (particles!)

Become particles (particles!)

Become particles (many many many many particle...)

Modes modes modes modes modes modes modes!

Oh mamma mia mamma mia,

Such a sea of particles!

A tachyon, with a dilaton and gravity-vity-VITY



(rock out!)



Now we need ten dimensions and I'll tell you why

(anomaly cancellation!)

So to get down to 4D we compactify!

Oh, Kahler!

(Kahler manifold)

Manifolds must be Kahler!

(Complex Reimannian symplectic form)

If we wanna preserve

Any of our super-symmetry



(Superstrings of type I, IIa and IIb)

(Heterotic O and Heterotic E)

(All are one through S and T duality)

(Thank you Ed Witten for that superstring revolution and your new M-theory!)



(Maldecena!)

(Super-Yang-Mills!)

(Type IIB String!)

Dual! Dual!

(In the AdS/CFT)

(Holography!)



Molecules and atoms

Light and energy

Time and space and matter

All from one united

Theory



Any way you quantize...



Lyrics and arrangement by Tim Blais and A Capella Science

Original music by Queen

h/t Universe Today!