#tom-lehrer — Public Fediverse posts

Oooh, look, sheet music and lyrics to this!

h/t @mjausson for the link.

https://github.com/ericries/tom-lehrer/releases

#tomlehrer #music #publicdomain

Oooh, look, sheet music and lyrics to this!

h/t @mjausson for the link.

https://github.com/ericries/tom-lehrer/releases

#tomlehrer #music #publicdomain

Oooh, look, sheet music and lyrics to this!

h/t @mjausson for the link.

https://github.com/ericries/tom-lehrer/releases

#tomlehrer #music #publicdomain

Oooh, look, sheet music and lyrics to this!

h/t @mjausson for the link.

https://github.com/ericries/tom-lehrer/releases

#tomlehrer #music #publicdomain

Oooh, look, sheet music and lyrics to this!

h/t @mjausson for the link.

https://github.com/ericries/tom-lehrer/releases

#tomlehrer #music #publicdomain

Remembering Tom Lehrer

(April 9, 1928-July 26, 2025)

#Music, #TomLehrer

Remembering Tom Lehrer

(April 9, 1928-July 26, 2025)

#Music, #TomLehrer

Remembering Tom Lehrer

(April 9, 1928-July 26, 2025)

#Music, #TomLehrer

Remembering Tom Lehrer

(April 9, 1928-July 26, 2025)

#Music, #TomLehrer

Remembering Tom Lehrer

(April 9, 1928-July 26, 2025)

#Music, #TomLehrer

On 26 July 2025: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, died at 97.
#RIP 💔😢😭

On 26 July 2025: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, died at 97.
#RIP 💔😢😭

On 26 July 2025: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, died at 97.
#RIP 💔😢😭

On 26 July 2025: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, died at 97.
#RIP 💔😢😭

On 26 July 2025: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, died at 97.
#RIP 💔😢😭

@mycotropic @sleet01 @wdormann @aspeed #tomlehrer

@mycotropic @sleet01 @wdormann @aspeed #tomlehrer

@mycotropic @sleet01 @wdormann @aspeed #tomlehrer

@mycotropic @sleet01 @wdormann @aspeed #tomlehrer

Operation Overcast was certainly underway by July 1945, approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bring into the US 350 German scientists, including #WernerVonBraun and his V2 rocket team, chemical weapons designers, and artillery and submarine engineers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/24/a-picayune-detail-nazi-science-heads-west/

Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

Lyrics
https://tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wernher-von-braun.pdf

#militaryIndustrialComplex #TomLehrer

Operation Overcast was certainly underway by July 1945, approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bring into the US 350 German scientists, including #WernerVonBraun and his V2 rocket team, chemical weapons designers, and artillery and submarine engineers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/24/a-picayune-detail-nazi-science-heads-west/

Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

Lyrics
https://tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wernher-von-braun.pdf

#militaryIndustrialComplex #TomLehrer

Operation Overcast was certainly underway by July 1945, approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bring into the US 350 German scientists, including #WernerVonBraun and his V2 rocket team, chemical weapons designers, and artillery and submarine engineers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/24/a-picayune-detail-nazi-science-heads-west/

Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

Lyrics
https://tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wernher-von-braun.pdf

#militaryIndustrialComplex #TomLehrer

Operation Overcast was certainly underway by July 1945, approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bring into the US 350 German scientists, including #WernerVonBraun and his V2 rocket team, chemical weapons designers, and artillery and submarine engineers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/24/a-picayune-detail-nazi-science-heads-west/

Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

Lyrics
https://tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wernher-von-braun.pdf

#militaryIndustrialComplex #TomLehrer

Operation Overcast was certainly underway by July 1945, approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bring into the US 350 German scientists, including #WernerVonBraun and his V2 rocket team, chemical weapons designers, and artillery and submarine engineers.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/24/a-picayune-detail-nazi-science-heads-west/

Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

Lyrics
https://tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wernher-von-braun.pdf

#militaryIndustrialComplex #TomLehrer

On April 9, 1928: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, born in New York City (d. 2025).
#HappyBirthday #RIP 💔🕊️

On April 9, 1928: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, born in New York City (d. 2025).
#HappyBirthday #RIP 💔🕊️

On April 9, 1928: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, born in New York City (d. 2025).
#HappyBirthday #RIP 💔🕊️

On April 9, 1928: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, born in New York City (d. 2025).
#HappyBirthday #RIP 💔🕊️

On April 9, 1928: #TomLehrer, American musician ("The Elements"), satirist (That Was The Week That Was), and mathematician, born in New York City (d. 2025).
#HappyBirthday #RIP 💔🕊️

@nicheinterests
My dad had this album, which I played over and over as a kid

Probably explains a lot
#TomLehrer

@nicheinterests
My dad had this album, which I played over and over as a kid

Probably explains a lot
#TomLehrer

@nicheinterests
My dad had this album, which I played over and over as a kid

Probably explains a lot
#TomLehrer

@nicheinterests
My dad had this album, which I played over and over as a kid

Probably explains a lot
#TomLehrer

@nicheinterests
My dad had this album, which I played over and over as a kid

Probably explains a lot
#TomLehrer

I've done a deep dive into the history of musical comedy and the novelty single, and begin the program this month with this crown jewel from the genre's late grand master, #TomLehrer's 1959 #PoisoningPigeonsInThePark. (No animals were harmed in the making of this video.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJIh5_WeNk

I've done a deep dive into the history of musical comedy and the novelty single, and begin the program this month with this crown jewel from the genre's late grand master, #TomLehrer's 1959 #PoisoningPigeonsInThePark. (No animals were harmed in the making of this video.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJIh5_WeNk

I've done a deep dive into the history of musical comedy and the novelty single, and begin the program this month with this crown jewel from the genre's late grand master, #TomLehrer's 1959 #PoisoningPigeonsInThePark. (No animals were harmed in the making of this video.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJIh5_WeNk

I've done a deep dive into the history of musical comedy and the novelty single, and begin the program this month with this crown jewel from the genre's late grand master, #TomLehrer's 1959 #PoisoningPigeonsInThePark. (No animals were harmed in the making of this video.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJIh5_WeNk

I've done a deep dive into the history of musical comedy and the novelty single, and begin the program this month with this crown jewel from the genre's late grand master, #TomLehrer's 1959 #PoisoningPigeonsInThePark. (No animals were harmed in the making of this video.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJIh5_WeNk

How did I not know about this song until just this minute? Je présente une chanson de Tom Lehrer récemment découverte. (I present a newly discovered song by Tom Lehrer.) #Music #Song #Comedy #Culture #Entertainment #France #TomLehrer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gjxz-7bBbo&list=RD8gjxz-7bBbo&start_radio=1

How did I not know about this song until just this minute? Je présente une chanson de Tom Lehrer récemment découverte. (I present a newly discovered song by Tom Lehrer.) #Music #Song #Comedy #Culture #Entertainment #France #TomLehrer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gjxz-7bBbo&list=RD8gjxz-7bBbo&start_radio=1

How did I not know about this song until just this minute? Je présente une chanson de Tom Lehrer récemment découverte. (I present a newly discovered song by Tom Lehrer.) #Music #Song #Comedy #Culture #Entertainment #France #TomLehrer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gjxz-7bBbo&list=RD8gjxz-7bBbo&start_radio=1

How did I not know about this song until just this minute? Je présente une chanson de Tom Lehrer récemment découverte. (I present a newly discovered song by Tom Lehrer.) #Music #Song #Comedy #Culture #Entertainment #France #TomLehrer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gjxz-7bBbo&list=RD8gjxz-7bBbo&start_radio=1

How did I not know about this song until just this minute? Je présente une chanson de Tom Lehrer récemment découverte. (I present a newly discovered song by Tom Lehrer.) #Music #Song #Comedy #Culture #Entertainment #France #TomLehrer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gjxz-7bBbo&list=RD8gjxz-7bBbo&start_radio=1

Tom is now listening to Wernher Von Braun
https://open.spotify.com/track/3x4uzqOOOTJgkPgv4xNbDq

#TomLehrer

https://youtu.be/QNA9rQcMq00?si=EVEzN2EFwvpSfgCc&t=20
#TomLehrer #spring #lente #frühling

https://youtu.be/QNA9rQcMq00?si=EVEzN2EFwvpSfgCc&t=20
#TomLehrer #spring #lente #frühling

https://youtu.be/QNA9rQcMq00?si=EVEzN2EFwvpSfgCc&t=20
#TomLehrer #spring #lente #frühling

“I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. / In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: / Plagiarize!”*…

In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. But as Joseph Howlett reports, a trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism…

When Demian Goos followed Karin Richter into her office on March 12 of last year, the first thing he noticed was the bust. It sat atop a tall pedestal in the corner of the room, depicting a bald, elderly gentleman with a stoic countenance. Goos saw no trace of the anxious, lonely man who had obsessed him for over a year.

Instead, this was Georg Cantor as history saw him. An intellectual giant: steadfast, strong-willed, determined to bring about a mathematical revolution over the clamorous objections of his peers.

It was here, at the University of Halle in Germany, that Cantor launched his revolution 150 years ago. Here, in 1874, he published one of the most important papers in math’s 4,000-year history. That paper crystallized a concept that had long been viewed as a mathematical malignancy to be shunned at all costs: infinity. It forced mathematicians to question some of their longest-held assumptions, rocking mathematics to its very foundations. And it gave rise to a new field of study that would eventually bring about a rewriting of the entire subject.

Now Goos, a 35-year-old mathematician and journalist, had come to Halle — a five-hour train ride from his home in Mainz — to look at some letters from Cantor’s estate. He’d seen a scan of one and was pretty sure he knew what the others would say. But he wanted to see them in person.

Richter — who, like Cantor, had spent her entire career here, first as a research mathematician and then, after retiring, as a lecturer on the history of mathematics — gestured for Goos to sit. She lifted a thin blue binder from the scattered piles of books and papers on her desk. Inside were dozens of plastic sheet protectors, each one containing an old, handwritten letter.

Goos began flipping through, contemplating the letters with the relish of an archaeologist entering a long-lost tomb. Then he reached a particular page and froze. He struggled to catch his breath.

It wasn’t the handwriting. At this point in his research on Cantor, he’d become accustomed to the strange, nearly indecipherable Gothic script known as kurrentschrift, which Germans used until around 1900.

It wasn’t the signature. He knew that the German mathematician Richard Dedekind had been a key player in Cantor’s quest to understand infinity and solidify math’s foundations, and that the two had exchanged many letters.

It was the date: November 30, 1873.

He’d never seen this letter before. No one had. It was believed to be lost, destroyed in the tumult of World War II or perhaps by Cantor himself.

This was the letter that had the power to rewrite Cantor’s legacy. The letter that proved once and for all that Cantor’s famous 1874 paper, the one that would go on to reshape all of mathematics, had been an act of plagiarism…

The extraordinary story of unearthing this extraordinary story: “The Man Who Stole Infinity,” from @quantamagazine.bsky.social.

See also: “How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?“

* Tom Lehrer (not just a glorious songwriter, but also a gifted mathematician), “Lobachevsky” (referring to the mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky— “not intended as a slur on [Lobachevsky’s] character [but chosen]”solely for prosodic reasons”)

###

As we confer credit where credit is due, we might spare a thought for Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, baron de la Vallée Poussin; he died on this date in 1962. A Belgian mathematician, he is best known for proving the prime number theorem (which formalized the intuitive idea that primes become less common as they become larger by precisely quantifying the rate at which this occurs). So great was the contribution that the King of Belgium ennobled him with the title of baron.

source

“I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. / In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: / Plagiarize!”*…

In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. But as Joseph Howlett reports, a trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism…

When Demian Goos followed Karin Richter into her office on March 12 of last year, the first thing he noticed was the bust. It sat atop a tall pedestal in the corner of the room, depicting a bald, elderly gentleman with a stoic countenance. Goos saw no trace of the anxious, lonely man who had obsessed him for over a year.

Instead, this was Georg Cantor as history saw him. An intellectual giant: steadfast, strong-willed, determined to bring about a mathematical revolution over the clamorous objections of his peers.

It was here, at the University of Halle in Germany, that Cantor launched his revolution 150 years ago. Here, in 1874, he published one of the most important papers in math’s 4,000-year history. That paper crystallized a concept that had long been viewed as a mathematical malignancy to be shunned at all costs: infinity. It forced mathematicians to question some of their longest-held assumptions, rocking mathematics to its very foundations. And it gave rise to a new field of study that would eventually bring about a rewriting of the entire subject.

Now Goos, a 35-year-old mathematician and journalist, had come to Halle — a five-hour train ride from his home in Mainz — to look at some letters from Cantor’s estate. He’d seen a scan of one and was pretty sure he knew what the others would say. But he wanted to see them in person.

Richter — who, like Cantor, had spent her entire career here, first as a research mathematician and then, after retiring, as a lecturer on the history of mathematics — gestured for Goos to sit. She lifted a thin blue binder from the scattered piles of books and papers on her desk. Inside were dozens of plastic sheet protectors, each one containing an old, handwritten letter.

Goos began flipping through, contemplating the letters with the relish of an archaeologist entering a long-lost tomb. Then he reached a particular page and froze. He struggled to catch his breath.

It wasn’t the handwriting. At this point in his research on Cantor, he’d become accustomed to the strange, nearly indecipherable Gothic script known as kurrentschrift, which Germans used until around 1900.

It wasn’t the signature. He knew that the German mathematician Richard Dedekind had been a key player in Cantor’s quest to understand infinity and solidify math’s foundations, and that the two had exchanged many letters.

It was the date: November 30, 1873.

He’d never seen this letter before. No one had. It was believed to be lost, destroyed in the tumult of World War II or perhaps by Cantor himself.

This was the letter that had the power to rewrite Cantor’s legacy. The letter that proved once and for all that Cantor’s famous 1874 paper, the one that would go on to reshape all of mathematics, had been an act of plagiarism…

The extraordinary story of unearthing this extraordinary story: “The Man Who Stole Infinity,” from @quantamagazine.bsky.social.

See also: “How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?“

* Tom Lehrer (not just a glorious songwriter, but also a gifted mathematician), “Lobachevsky” (referring to the mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky— “not intended as a slur on [Lobachevsky’s] character [but chosen]”solely for prosodic reasons”)

###

As we confer credit where credit is due, we might spare a thought for Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, baron de la Vallée Poussin; he died on this date in 1962. A Belgian mathematician, he is best known for proving the prime number theorem (which formalized the intuitive idea that primes become less common as they become larger by precisely quantifying the rate at which this occurs). So great was the contribution that the King of Belgium ennobled him with the title of baron.

source