You know what the Scientifick Blogohedron needs more of? Well, besides introductions to basic subjects, so that we can be more than chatterbots reacting to whatever news story incenses us the most?
Gosh, you people are demanding.
No, I’m talking about nightmare fuel!
And as only children’s television can deliver. You remember Square One TV, right? It came on PBS in the afternoons, after Reading Rainbow and before Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. Like every other aspect of my generation’s formative years, it can be relived via the video tubes. Our lives have already been uploaded: the Singularity came and went, and we were all too busy arguing to notice.
Looking back, Reimy the Estimator Girl was fairly cute, and the “Angle Dance” is somewhat frightening in that in-1983-this-was-the-future way, but one bit of sheer irrational terror stands out. I refer, of course, to the mask which Reg E. Cathey wears in the title role of “Archimedes”:
LYRICS WITH LINKY GOODNESS:
Archimedes!
Archimedes!
A mathematician and scientist
Born in 287 BC
He lived in the city of Syracuse
On the island of Sicily
He said he could move the world
If he only had a place to stand
A fulcrum and a lever long
And the strength of an average man
He solved the problems of his days
Using math in amazing ways
His great work lives on today
Archimedes!
Archimedes!
The Archimedian Principle tells
Why things float up or sink down
He found it when he needed to prove
The value of the King’s gold crown
His pulley system lifted weights
When the heavy loads got rough
His inventions saved the day
There wasn’t any job too tough
He solved the problems of his days
Using math in amazing ways
His great work lives on today
Archimedes!
Archimedes!
He watched the stars and planets move
He built a planetarium
To illustrate the Universe
The Earth the Moon and shining Sun
With circles and with cylinders
He was busy calculating π
This really was remarkable
For a man who lived in early times
He solved the problems of his days
Using math in amazing ways
His great work lives on today
Archimedes!
Archimedes!
Archimedes! Archimedes!
Archimedes! Archimedes!
AFTERTHOUGHT
Square One TV might not be the best place to dramatize the death of Archimedes — hacked down by a Roman soldier after Syracuse fell to Marcus Claudius Marcellus in the Second Punic War. This story has often been told to contrast Greek and Roman cultures, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and Archimedes had designed the war engines which had killed untold numbers of Romans. I doubt the soldier who found the mathematician drawing circles in the sand was inclined to be very even-tempered; and Marcellus, who was reportedly upset at the loss of so great a scientist, might have been crying a few crocodile tears.