Flanders & Swann - 'First And Second Law'

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  • Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
  • Flanders & Swann - 'First And Second Law'
    From the stage performance 'At The Drop Of Another Hat' in 1964
    Lyrics:
    Michael = M, Donald = D
    M: The First law of Thermodynamics.
    M: Heat is work and work is heat
    D: Heat is work and work is heat
    M: Very Good.
    D: The Second law of thermodynamics.
    M: Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
    D: Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
    M: Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
    D: Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
    M: You can try it if you like but you'd far better not-a
    D: You can try it if you like but you'd far better not-a
    M: 'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
    D: 'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
    M: 'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
    D: 'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
    Heat is work and work is heat and work is heat and heat is work
    M: Heat will pass by conduction and
    D: Heat will pass by conduction and
    M: Heat will pass by convection and
    D: Heat will pass by convection and
    M: Heat will pass by radiation
    D: Heat will pass by radiation
    And that's a physical law
    M: Heat is work and work's a curse
    M: And all the heat in the universe
    M: Is gonna cool down,
    M: 'Cos it can't increase
    M: Then there'll be no more work
    M: And there'll be perfect peace
    D: Really?
    M: Yeah, that's entropy, Man.
    M: And all because of the second law of thermodynamics which lays down:
    M: That you can't pass heat from a cooler to a hotter
    M: Try it if you like but you'd far better not-a
    'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
    'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
    Oh, you can't pass heat from a cooler to a hotter
    Try it if you like but you'll only look a fool-a
    'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
    And that's a physical law
    M: Oh, I'm hot
    D: That's because you've been working!
    M: Oh, Beatles, nothing!
    That's the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

КОМЕНТАРІ • 98

  • @jamescoulson6610
    @jamescoulson6610 3 місяці тому +3

    I have fond memories of listening to this album on long car journeys at the age of about six.
    Some time later, my A-level physics teacher used this song to introduce the concept of thermodynamics to the class ,and was delighted to find out that I recognised it!

  • @justcarcrazy
    @justcarcrazy 9 років тому +129

    "Yeah, that's 'entropy', man."

  • @janeedginton3669
    @janeedginton3669 7 років тому +95

    In school, I passed a test about the second law of thermodynamics by learning the words of the Flanders and Swan song! I have always loved them. I saw "At the Drop of a Hat" and "At the Drop of Another Hat" in London when I was young. Why is there no comedy like that any more?

    • @Mystery_Biscuits
      @Mystery_Biscuits 7 років тому +6

      Sort of similar comedy style that I adore: "Festival of the Spoken Nerd", Proper math/s and science comedy at its best. "Putting the FUN into FUNdamental Theorem of Calculus!"

    • @janeedginton3669
      @janeedginton3669 7 років тому +8

      That sounds like Tom Lehrer who wrote a song called "The New Math" implying that the new way of teaching maths introduced into US schools in the 1960s was only understandable by children, not adults. I believe that Tom Lehrer is still alive but very elderly. He was a maths lecturer in an American university, but enjoyed writing these hugely funny songs. Please advise where you can locate the songs to which you referred.

    • @Mystery_Biscuits
      @Mystery_Biscuits 7 років тому

      I love Tome Lehrer's work and I'm currently learning "the elements" on the piano as I'I've already learnt the lyrics. You can find FOTSN (festival of the spoken nerd) stuff by just searching that in UA-cam or going to their website, festivalofthespokennerd.com

    • @janeedginton3669
      @janeedginton3669 7 років тому +4

      Flanders and Swann are wonderful. "you can't pass heat from a cooler to a hotter". Listen to the words. Very clever.

    • @NezumiWorks
      @NezumiWorks 6 років тому +4

      I know this is a quite old comment, but I see that nobody recommended the science stuff that They Might Be Giants does. Quite fun and funny, but informative as well. They even did a correction song for "The Sun Is a Mass Of Incandescent Gas" called "The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma", which gives you a feeling for their sense of humour.
      See also Helen Arney's nerdy stuff, which is loads of fun.

  • @georgianfishbowl170
    @georgianfishbowl170 4 роки тому +24

    I love how he says he's waiting for the play to come out as opposed to the film coming out

  • @epiendless1128
    @epiendless1128 3 роки тому +17

    Well if the scientist has made a rude retort, then he has the perfect vessel within which to synthesis that H2SO4.

  • @terrymorse
    @terrymorse 10 років тому +75

    I just played this to explain to my wife why we should leave the windows open to keep our house cool. Priceless.

  • @sarahbass6116
    @sarahbass6116 Рік тому +3

    I have just found my fathers cds. Can’t wait for my next 6 hour drive, will be fun. i’ll be singing all the songs. yeah

  • @amanikessi5509
    @amanikessi5509 4 роки тому +7

    Childhood memories, my mother use to play these records, priceless!

    • @PMA65537
      @PMA65537 2 роки тому

      I also learned these from the records. It was years before I saw on telly that one of the songs was performed as a visual comedy.

  • @Mousy677
    @Mousy677 5 років тому +19

    this is in fact how 11 year old me learned the first and second laws of thermodynamics (eleven years ago), which, yeah that does explain all of me

    • @IstasPumaNevada
      @IstasPumaNevada 2 роки тому +1

      Not a bad foundational influence to have. :)
      I presume you also appreciate Weird Al's song "Pancreas"?

    • @stevenlowe3026
      @stevenlowe3026 Рік тому +1

      That's how I learnt it, too - and I still think the Second Law is far better expressed in Flanders' words than those in the text book.

  • @Matheleine
    @Matheleine Рік тому

    I must have listened to this dozens of times, and I have only just twigged the 'rude retort' pun. Simply marvelous!

  • @101mosioatunya
    @101mosioatunya 3 роки тому +2

    This has to be my "Most Favourite Song of All Time"!!!

  • @deedonnerramone4757
    @deedonnerramone4757 7 років тому +39

    "And the reciprocal of pi to your good wife"

  • @infernalcontraptions8648
    @infernalcontraptions8648 4 роки тому +35

    When you have a thermofluids exam tomorrow and you end up listeing to this in a fit of madness whilst panic revising.

  • @ruthdzingomvera3151
    @ruthdzingomvera3151 2 роки тому +2

    Was all down about failing tomorrow's chemistry test, but this out a smile on my face

    • @hancailer1470
      @hancailer1470 2 роки тому +1

      Same boat as you, gonna fail chemistry tomorrow but this is great

    • @ruthdzingomvera3151
      @ruthdzingomvera3151 2 роки тому

      @@hancailer1470 all the best either way!

  • @jg9125
    @jg9125 2 роки тому +5

    It's quite telling that "make a rude retort" gets a big laugh from the audience in 1964, whereas I've had a good education and have listened to the joke many times and I've only just realised that it's a pun about laboratory equipment. It might just be my ignorance, but it sort of demonstrates that the gulf between science and humanities learning is a lot worse now than when C. P. Snow was writing about it!

    • @treewrecker8050
      @treewrecker8050 Рік тому

      At the risk of my seeming stupid, would you mind explaining the joke in that line?

    • @jg9125
      @jg9125 Рік тому +1

      @@treewrecker8050 I think it's just that 'retort' can mean either a reply or a piece of laboratory glassware used by chemists for distillation experiments. It's definitely not a very accessible joke, but I assume that's why the audience are laughing. I certainly don't think we were taught about retorts in science class at school, but perhaps for well-educated people who grew up in the early 20th century it would just have been general knowledge.

    • @treewrecker8050
      @treewrecker8050 Рік тому +1

      @@jg9125 Thank you for the explanation; I suppose education has changed quite drastically.

    • @sarahbass6116
      @sarahbass6116 Рік тому

      or not

    • @mavisemberson8737
      @mavisemberson8737 Місяць тому

      @@jg9125 We USED retorts in our chemistry lessons in laboratories. 1950s You need a laboratory for practical basic chemistry for secondary schools. They were heated on gas bunsen burners and i suppose you don't have gas supplies .

  • @SilverLion567
    @SilverLion567 11 років тому +6

    Lovely, wish there were more satirical songs like this

  • @dexterousdiscourses7811
    @dexterousdiscourses7811 5 років тому +3

    There can be only one title to a prequel - if ever there was one - to this song: “zeroth law”

  • @mentilly_all
    @mentilly_all 9 років тому +3

    Awesome song.

  • @jamesgizasson
    @jamesgizasson Рік тому +6

    This will be the last song played before the heat death of the universe. Hopefully on a warped gramophone. :3

  • @bubblebath86
    @bubblebath86 10 років тому +8

    Song starts at 2:07 btw

    • @ryanchan2358
      @ryanchan2358 4 місяці тому

      2:07 the first law of thermodynamics

  • @5Cats
    @5Cats 8 років тому +2

    This song & skit is so funny! Genius. It was "covered" by the Canadian comedy duo Wayne & Shuster, but I can't find a video of that...

  • @cristiewentz8586
    @cristiewentz8586 2 роки тому

    brilliance....

  • @clarahowson2911
    @clarahowson2911 5 років тому +22

    I used to listen to this whole show on a CD on long car journeys. I’m 14 and I have weird parents, okay?

    • @frodoatko1237
      @frodoatko1237 4 роки тому +3

      Only the best parents do this

    • @AlanCanon2222
      @AlanCanon2222 4 роки тому +3

      I was 14 in 1983, and it was records and cassette tapes. My chemistry teacher played this song for us. Flanders and Swann are forever icons of geek culture, just like Weird Al and Tom Lehrer, and this might even be the song that expresses it best. Did you know Swann was friends with J R R Tolkein and C. S. Lewis?

    • @oscarfox6726
      @oscarfox6726 4 роки тому +1

      @I am the Cat Human same here. I love them so much. They’re absolutely brilliant.

    • @DaBlueIghuana
      @DaBlueIghuana 2 роки тому

      Same here,

    • @kaylarosemary936
      @kaylarosemary936 2 роки тому +2

      @@AlanCanon2222 I have never heard Weird Al, Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Sann, Tolkein, and Lewis mentioned in the same thought before, and it is a wonderful feeling to have. And I didn't know that... though it somehow doesn't surprise me. :D

  • @vascoct
    @vascoct 5 років тому +10

    I came here from Blundell

  • @mrmjb1960
    @mrmjb1960 6 років тому

    Never heatd this track! Thank You!

  • @Stophrah
    @Stophrah 3 роки тому +17

    Grand Designs? 🥲

    • @alangangel26
      @alangangel26 3 роки тому +1

      Same 😂

    • @vermilisix
      @vermilisix 3 роки тому +1

      The error character is supposed to be a smiling face with a tear btw

    • @njhaley
      @njhaley 3 роки тому +1

      Twilight zone style ending. Brilliant!

  • @ruthbarron625
    @ruthbarron625 7 років тому

    Terrific.

  • @aron66686
    @aron66686 3 роки тому +3

    Guten Morgen Stuttgart

  • @rickysauce2071
    @rickysauce2071 3 роки тому +10

    Anyone else found themselves here after watching Grand Designs!?

  • @kevinjamesparr552
    @kevinjamesparr552 7 років тому +10

    Recall them at Oxford rag week 1971. The sexual life of a camel be stranger than anyone thinks in the height of the breeding season is accused of Buggering the Spinx , and so on

  • @raykapi
    @raykapi 6 років тому +5

    Literally my life in a nutshell.

  • @donerriss1560
    @donerriss1560 3 роки тому +2

    Stuttgart wya

  • @LakshmananLM
    @LakshmananLM 4 роки тому +2

    Somehow ended up here from Quora!

  • @holmegab
    @holmegab 7 років тому +4

    Someone needs to explain this to Rick Perry.

    • @johndemeritt3460
      @johndemeritt3460 4 роки тому

      If you're looking for an impossible task to perform, you've just found one . . . .

  • @MsPandaRosa
    @MsPandaRosa 10 років тому +2

    Here's a great way to teach the laws of physics to the kiddies!

  • @iamnormal8648
    @iamnormal8648 9 місяців тому

    Commedy has truly evolved. I didn't even smirk from this video. I wonder if they would find today's comedy funny.

    • @jamesconnolly5164
      @jamesconnolly5164 3 місяці тому +1

      "That's entropy, man."
      It's like they're beatniks but educated.

  • @moritztesch5286
    @moritztesch5286 3 роки тому

    Jonas, warst du schon hier?

  • @cintiqlover
    @cintiqlover 6 років тому +1

    Dr Clarke sent me here, reply if you're in me class yo

  • @jefferysmith7643
    @jefferysmith7643 9 років тому +3

    Very funny.

  • @littletimmythefifth29
    @littletimmythefifth29 Рік тому

    Here at 213,072 views.

  • @T0MBRA1D3RR
    @T0MBRA1D3RR 6 років тому +1

    He sounds EXACTLY like Stewie in the beginning...

  • @vermilisix
    @vermilisix 3 роки тому

    who else is in p4 history (wassim i know you're there)

  • @Everythingisalreadytaken69
    @Everythingisalreadytaken69 2 роки тому

    MSE - studenten?

  • @milenerer
    @milenerer 2 роки тому

    wo sind meine stuttgarter

  • @captainoverkill2377
    @captainoverkill2377 Рік тому

    heard

  • @0nyr
    @0nyr 5 років тому +1

    3:31

  • @powt0wn
    @powt0wn 3 роки тому +1

    i am here from a crossword :)

  • @Sarah-ex3un
    @Sarah-ex3un 7 років тому

    sorry ai said bad to this

  • @fifaxeno70hd52
    @fifaxeno70hd52 5 місяців тому

    dry song