Flanders & Swann - 'First And Second Law'
notsyort2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2020–2024
music · general · evergreen · 2020–2024 on HN
Flanders and Swann perform 'First and Second Law', a comic song about the laws of thermodynamics, from their 1964 stage show At the Drop of Another Hat. It sets the first and second laws to a deadpan call-and-response routine.
HN brings it up whenever thermodynamics or entropy comes up, as the classic comic explanation of the laws.
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4 comments from Hacker News
The classic Flanders and Swann explanation: ▶ this video Excerpts: No one can consider themsleves educated who doesn't understand the basic language of science - Boyle's law: the greater the external pressure the greater the volume of hot air. I was someone shocked to learn my partner not only doesn't understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics, he doesn't even understand the first! : Heat won't pass from the cooler to hotter! You can try it if you like but you'd far better notta! 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.
> While they don't have the science/maths background that makes Lehrer an obvious win for the HN crowd, True, but they did one on thermodynamics ▶ this video
"Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body." Thank you, Flanders and Swann! ▶ this video
The claim is that the walls can be hotter than the room around it. By the second law of thermodynamics, heat doesn't naturally move from a cooler object to a hotter object, or as Flanders and Swann would put it, "heat don't move from a cooler to a hotter" ( ▶ this video ) [1]