Thursday, November 16, 2006

Weird Al is the man.

Watch this. It's Weird Al's new video. Bonus points for having the Schroedinger equation show up. This may be my favorite Weird Al song since The Saga Begins.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kirk or Picard? That's no contest for any true nerd - Picard. No, the real conundrum is Data or Spock?

Anonymous said...

Doug, that is hilarious. I think we should nominate Wierd Al for an honorary degree. Can you think of a better commencement speaker? Not a chance.

Anonymous said...

Doug, I just checked the Wikipedia page on "white and nerdy" to discover that the equation in the video has an error. Without checking the wiki, can you find the mistake? Two bonus points to the first of your blog readers who post the answer. No cheating (even though I did).

Douglas Natelson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Douglas Natelson said...

Dan - you're on. I see no mistake. At 1:35 into the video, the equation reads (in LaTeX): \left[ -\frac{\hbar^2}{2 \mu} \nabla^{2} - \frac{e^2}{r}\right] \psi(r) = E \psi(r). This is exactly the time-independent Schr. Eq. for the relative coordinate for positronium, where \mu is the reduced mass. Now I'll look at the wiki to see what it says....

Douglas Natelson said...

Doh! The wiki is absolutely right, and my LaTeX in the previous comment is absolutely wrong. Damn!