MY FAIR THEORIST Scene: Outside a conference venue, rain pouring down Colonel Pickering (CP): By Jove! Good heavens! Bit Player: Oh, sir, is there any sign of it stopping? CP: I'm afraid not. It's worse than before. Bit Player: Oh, dear! CP: If it's worse, it's a sign it's nearly over. Liza Doolittle (LD): Cheer up, professor. Buy a senior thesis off a poor girl? CP: I'm sorry. I haven't any grant money. LD: Oh, I can give a five minute summary. Y'see, the iron photodissociates, removin' pressure support from the radiation... CP: I told you, I'm awfully sorry. I haven't-- Oh, wait a minute. Oh, yes. Here's a summer internship, if that's any use to you. LD: Thank you, sir. Bit Player: Hey, you, be careful. Better give him a paper for it. There's a bloke here behind that pillar, taking down every blessed word you're saying. LD: I ain't done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I'm a respectable student, so help me. Oh, sir, don't let him charge me! You don't know what it means to me! They'll-- They'll take away me bachelor's and drive me on the streets! For-- For speaking to gentlemen! Professor Adam Burrows (AB): There, there, there, there. Who's hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for? Do I look like a policeman? LD: How do I know you took me down right? You just show me what you wrote about me. [Shows her paper with nuclear reaction equations, Euler eqns, hydrostatic equilibrium] LD: What's that? That ain't proper writing. I can't read it. AB: I can. "Y'see, the iron photodissociates, removin' pressure support from the radiation..." CP: Duuude, if you are a detective, you needn't begin protecting me against molestation from young students until I ask you. Anyone can tell the girl meant no harm. [Many of the bit players are carrying posters. AB squints at them as they put in their $0.02 worth.] Bit Player 3: He ain't no copper. He's a prof. Look at his shorts. AB: How are all your people down at UVa? BP3: Who told you my people come from UVa? AB: Never mind, they do. How do you come to be so far east? You did your grad work at Santa Cruz. BP3: Ohh, what harm is there in my leaving Santa Cruz? It weren't fit for a pig to live in and I had to pay $460 a week. LD: I'm a good student, I am! BP4: Where do I come from? AB: Boulder. BP4: Well, who said I didn't. You know everything, you do. Tell him where he comes from, you want to go fortune telling [pointing at CP]. AB: Madison, Steward, Groenegen, and, mm, the MMTO. CP: Duuude. BP4: Blimey, 'e ain't a cop, 'e's a bloomin' busybody, 'e is. CP: How do you do it? AB: Simple tensor calculus. The science of astrophysics. That's my profession, also my hobby. BP3: He ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward! CP: Is there a living in that? AB: Oh, yes, quite a fat one. LD: Let him mind his own business and leave a poor girl- AB: Student! Cease this detestable boo-hooing instantly or else seek the shelter of some other institute of learning. LD: I've a right to be here if I like, same as you. AB: A person who utters such disgusting and depressing noise, she has no right to be anywhere, no right to live. Remember that you're a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech, that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Eddington and Galileo. Don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon. Chris Sharp: Did somebody say "pigeon"? [Music for 1st number. AB with interjections by others] Look at her A prisoner of the gutters Condemned by every syllable she utters By right, she should be taken out and hung For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue LD- Ohh! LD- Ohh! Heavens, what a sound This is what the Astro population Calls an elementary education CP-Come, sir, I think you picked a poor example. Did I? Hear them down in Harvard Square dropping "H naught"s everywhere Talking Science any way they like Hear a Berkeley man or worse Hear a Caltech man converse I'd rather hear a choir singing flat Why, their programs are a wreck Just like this one- "Keck!" "Keck!" I ask you sir what sort of word is that? It's MOND and Keck that keep her in her place Not her wretched prose and dirty face Why can't departments teach their students to derive? A theorist's way of speaking absolutely classifies him The moment he talks he makes some other theorist despise him One common code I fear we'll never get. Oh, why can't the ApJ learn to set a good example to people whose physics is painful to your ears? A&A and Nature leave you close to tears There are even places where astronomy wholly disappears. Why, at ASU they haven't done any in years. [Song ends, AB turns to CP] AB: You see this creature with her curbstone astrophysics, the astrophysics that will keep her in the gutter 'til the end of her days? Well, in six months I could pass her off as a post-doc at a AAS meeting. I could even get her a job as a developer for RedHat, which requires better mathematics. LD: 'Ere, what's that you say? AB: Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns; you incarnate insult to the English language, I could pass you off as... as... the Editor of ApJ! LD: Ohh, you don't believe that, professor? CP: Duuude, anything's possible. I myself am a student of telescope control systems. AB: Are you? Do you know Tim Pickering, the author of the Fulvio Melia patch for Quake III? CP: I am Tim Pickering. Who are you? AB: I'm Adam Burrows, author of 1,001 things to do with a brown dwarf. CP: I came from the technical division to meet you. AB: I was going to the technical division to meet you! CP: Burrows! AB: Pickering! LD: Buy some IDL code, kind sir? I'm short for me travel budget. AB: Liar. You get a per diem, just like the rest of us. LD: Ooo, you ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought. Here take the whole blooming package for sixpence. [Liza stalks across stage away from AB & CP while they exit, chatting. She plops down amidst some other destitute undergrads.] Various bit players: -Ooh, shouldn't we stand up, gentlemen? We've got an editor in our midst. -Would you be lookin' for an assistant, Eliza? -Oh, you won't do. -Wouldn't you be so kind as to review my paper? -I'll think I'll go to a nice conference in the Canaries. -Me, I'm for a cushy faculty job at a Major Institution. [Liza, singing] All I want is a room somewhere, Linux box and a comfy chair big grants and good software, oh, wouldn't it be loverly Lots of papers for me to read four year track to a Ph.D. a prelim so easy oh, wouldn't it be loverly Oh, so loverly codin' Fortran-bloomin'-ninety-five I would never budge, while any bugs are left alive Some big-wig to advise me Influential as he can be Who takes good care of me Oh, wouldn't it be loverly [AB's office. AB is blathering on while CP snores in the recliner. Carmen enters] Carmen: Adam, there's a new student who wants to see you. AB: A new student? What does he want? Carmen: Oh, I should have sent her away, but I thought I'd waste some of your time for a change. AB: Oh, very well, send her in. Perhaps she will envince some riscible malapropisms. LD: Might I have the pleasure of a word with you face-to-face? AB: Oh, no, no, no. This is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use. I've got all the students I want who don't know how supernovae work. I'm not going to waste another RA on that. I don't want you. LD: Don't be so saucy. You ain't heard what I come for yet. Did you tell him I come on a prospective visit? CP: Nonsense, dude. What do you think a professor like Dr. Burrows cares why you came? LD: Oh, we are proud. Well, he ain't above takin' on students. Not him. I heard him say so. Well, I ain't come here askin' for any compliment, and if my fellowship's not good enough, I can go elsewhere. AB: Good enough for what? LD: Good enough for you. Now you know, don't ya. I'm come to be your student, I am, and to pay for it, too, make no mistake. AB: Well. And what do you expect me to say? LD: Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. AB: Well, Pickering, should we ask this baggage to sit down or should we just throw her out of the window? LD: Oh! I won't be called a baggage, not when I've been accepted to the program like any other grad student. CP: Adam, I'm interested. What about your boast that you could pass her off as a postdoc at a AAS meeting, dude? I'll say you're the greatest teacher alive if you can make that good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment that you can't do it. AB: You know, it's almost irresistible. She's so deliciously low, so horribly ignorant. LD: I ain't ignorant! I read my Carol & Ostlie before I come, I did. AB: I'll take it. I'll make a postdoc of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe. We'll start today. Take her away, Carmen, and register her. Carmen: But I've got no place to put her. AB: Well, put her where the water fountain used to be in the dome. CP: Come on, dude, be reasonable. Carmen: You must be reasonable, really you must. CP: You can't walk over everybody like this. AB: I, walk over everybody? My dear Mrs. Henley, my dear Pickering, I had no intention of walking over anybody. I merely suggested we should be kind to this poor girl. CP: But dude, you can't just take up a student like that, as, as if you were picking up a pen at the Lockheed-Martin booth. AB: Why not? CP: But you don't know anything about her. What about her transcripts? She may have other offers. LD: Guuwwwwwaaaaannn. AB: There, as the girl very properly says, "Guuwwwwwaaaaannn." LD: Who'd hire me? AB: By Peter, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with faculty shooting themselves for your sake before I'm done with you. LD: Here, I'm going. He's off his chump, he is. I don't want no balmies teaching me. AB: Oh, mad, am I? All right, Mrs. Henley, don't ring up and order that new computer. Throw her out! CP: Stop, Adam. I won't allow it. AB: Go home to your advisor. LD: I ain't got no advisor. AB: There you are. She ain't got no advisor. What's all the fuss about? Nobody wants her. She's no use to anybody but me, so take her upstairs! Carmen: But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid anything? Oh, do be sensible. AB: What would she do with money? She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink coffee if you give her money. LD: Oh, you are a brute! It's a lie! Nobody ever saw the sign of caffeine on me. CP: Adam, does it occur to you the girl has some feelings? AB: Oh, no, I don't think so. None we need worry about. LD: Here, I've had enough of this. I'm goin', I am. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought. AB: Have some chocolates, Eliza. You'll have boxes of them, barrels of them every day. Think of it, Eliza. Think of chocolates. And conference travel and beowulf clusters and laptops! LD: Ohh! I don't want no beowulfs and laptops. I'm a good student, I am. CP: Adam, I really must interfere. If this student's going to put herself in your hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must understand thoroughly what she's doing. AB: Hmm. Eliza. You are to stay here for the next six months, learning how to do theoretical astrophysics. Like an assistant professor in a tenure track position. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall work in a proper office, have lots of coffee to drink, and money to buy computers and travel to conferences. But if you are naughty and idle, you shall work in the computer lab amongst the undergrads... and be walloped by John Cocke with a copy of Schutz. At the end of six months you shall be taken to the AAS, in coach, with a powerpoint presentation. If Peter finds out that you are not a postdoc, you will be taken to the 90" where you will be sentenced to life as a TO as a warning to other presumtuous grad students. But if you are not found out, you shall have a present, let's see, of a Hubble fellowship, to start off life at a leading name-brand institution. If you refuse this offer, you will be the most ungrateful, wicked girl, and the NSF proposal review board will weep for you. [Carmen leads Liza out] CP: Adam, forgive the bluntness, but if I'm to be in this business, I shall feel responsible for that student. I hope it's clearly understood that no advantage is to be taken of her position. AB: I never take advantage of my students. CP: Come now, Adam. You know what I mean. This is no trifling matter. Are you a man of good character where students are concerned? AB: Have you ever met a man of good character where students are concerned? CP: Yes, quite frequently. AB: Well, I haven't. I find the moment that a grad becomes my student, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious and a damn nuisance.And I find the moment that I become a student's advisor, I become selfish and tyrannical. [Singing, if Adam or Rex Harrison can be said to do any such thing.] Well, after all, Pickering, I'm an ordinary man who desires nothing more Than just an ordinary chance to research the way he likes And do precisely what he wants An average man am I of no eccentric whim Who likes to live his life free of strife Doing whatever he thinks is best for him Well, just an, an ordinary man But let a student in your life And you're up against a wall Pick a thesis and you'll find she has something else in mind And so rather than do either you do something else that neither likes at all You want to talk of Stan or Stirling She only wants to talk of Dave She writes a hydrostatic test case And ends up needing to damp waves Let a student in your life And you invite eternal strife Let them spend their time on class Who cares whether they pass I'd be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling Than to ever let a student in my life I'm a very gentle man Even tempered and good-natured whom you never hear complain Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein A patient man am I down to my fingertips The sort who never could ever would Let an insulting remark escape his lips A very gentle man But let a student in your life And patience hasn't got a chance She will beg you for advice Your reply will be concise And she'll listen very nicely then go out and do precisely what she wants You are a man of grace and polish Who can quote the OED Now all at once you're using language That NATSlings would sneer to see Let a student in your life And you're plunging in a knife Let the others on my floor Fight this tragic futile war I prefer a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition [Jeremy leaps out with sword] JB: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! [Looks around at the silent, disapproving faces] JB: Sorry [Exits] Than to ever let a student in my life Let a student in your life I shall never let A student in my life [Time passes. Liza is neat and clean. Probably have a sign saying, "Time Passes."] AB: Say your spectral types. LD: I know me spectral types. I knew 'em when I come, I did. AB: Well, if you know them, say them LD: O...B... AB: No, no, no! Listen to me. WO,WC,WN,O,B,A,F,G,K,M,L,T,R,N,S,DA,DB... LD: That's what I said. O,B,A,F,G,K,M. That's what I've been saying for three days, and I won't say them no more! CP: Duude, I know it's difficult, but try to understand. AB: It's no use explaining, Pickering. As a sysadmin, you ought to know that. Drilling is what she needs. Now you leave her alone or she'll be turning to you for sympathy. Now say WN! LD: You ain't got no heart, you ain't! AB: Eliza, I promise you you'll say your spectral types correctly before this day is out... or there'll be no lunch, no colloquium... and no chocolates. [AB and CP exit. Eliza stews for a while. Then, singing] Just you wait, Adam Burrows, just you wait You'll be sorry, but your tears'll be too late Oh, you won't think it's funny When you don't get grant money Just you wait Adam Burrows just you wait. Just you wait Adam Burrows 'til you write a paper needs a plot that very bloomin' night I'll dash all of your hopes cause I'll be at the telescopes Ha-ha-ha Adam Burrows, Just you wait Oooh, Adam Burrows Just you wait until the next SCIDAC review Oooh, Adam Burrows And they ask, what does this weird EOS do When it doesn't work in stars I'll be on a ship to Mars ha-ha-ha Adam Burrows Ho-ho-ho Adam Burrows Just you wait One day I'll be famous Everyone will cite me Go to Livermore so often I will call it Larry One evening Peter will say Oh, Liza, old thing I want all of Steward Your praises to sing Next week on the 20th of May I proclaim Liza Doolittle Day All the people will celebrate The glory of you And whatever you wish and want I gladly will do Thanks a lot, Pete says I In a manner well-bred But all I want is Adam Burrows' head Done Says Peter with a stroke McIntosh, run and bring in the bloke Then they'll march you Adam Burrows, to the wall And Peter will tell me Liza, sound the call It will be a sweet adventure When they strip you of your tenure Ha ha ha, Adam Burrows Down you'll go Adam Burrows Just you wait, Adam Burrows Just...you...wait. [Later. AB, CP, and LD are all in Adam's office, still looking fairly game. Wendy Friedmann is sitting in a corner.] LD: Virial theorem Virial theorem Virial theorem AB: All right, Eliza, say it again. LD: The dustly lane...stays mainly in...the spheroid? AB: The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. Every night before you get into bed where you used to say your prayers, I want you to say, "The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane"... 50 times. Now for your "H"s. Pickering, this is going to be ghastly. CP: Control yourself, dude. Give the girl a chance. AB: Oh, well, I suppose you can't expect her to get it right the first time. Come here, Eliza, and watch closely. Now. You see that cosmologist? Everytime you say the right value of H_0, the cosmologist will smile, everytime you say the wrong value, she will twitch violently backward like a startled squid. That's how you'll know if you've done it correctly. Now try it. LD: 72 +/- 7 km/s/Mpc AB: No, no, no. Have you no sense at all? That's an observationally determined quantity. You must assume an observation is flawed unless it agrees with the theoretical predictions. Now repeat after me: 60 km/s/Mpc... LD: 60 km/s/Mpc...60 km/s/Mpc... [Liza keeps repeating this while AB and CP chat] AB: Does the same thing hold true in the technical division, Pickering? [Wendy Friedmann is twitching ever more violently] AB: This peculiar habit of quoting error bars for a parameter that can obviously only have one value? [Wendy is now bleeding from the ears] [Random Steward staff, singing] Poor professor Burrows Poor professor Burrows [Wendy gives a shriek and collapses on the floor, dead or comatose.] Night and day he slaves away Oh, poor professor Burrows All day long In and out asking for new plots and code doesn't rest doesn't eat can he bear the load? [sign: hours later. The group is starting to look frayed. AB has a xylophone] AB: Again, Eliza. How kind of you to fund my grant. LD: How kind of you to fund my grant. [Staff singing again] Poor Professor Burrows Poor Professor Burrows On he plods against all odds Oh, poor Professor Burrows Nine p.m. Ten p.m. On through midnight every night One a.m. Two a.m. [More hours later. Everyone looking very wilted. AB has a chart of the nucleides] AB: Thirty, forty, fifty species. Now, I want you to write a reaction network, and I want you to keep track of every flow. [Liza madly types] CP: I say, dude, are those atoms really necessary? AB: If they were necessary for Democritus, they are necessary for Eliza Doolittle. Go on, Eliza. [Liza shows him the results] AB: I can't make heads nor tails of these abundances! CP: Adam, perhaps that problem's a little too difficult. Why don't you try something simpler, like an alpha chain? [Staff singing again] Quit, Professor Burrows Quit, Professor Burrows Hear our plea or payday we will quit Professor Burrows [More hours still. Everyone has a headache and looks like hell.] AB: It's rotational support! A disk! A disk! Say it! The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. LD: I can't! I'm so tired! I'm so tired! CP: For God's sake, Adam, it must be 3:00 in the morning. Do be reasonable. AB: I am always reasonable. Eliza, if I can go on with a blistering headache, you can. I know your head aches. I know you're tired. I know your nerves are as raw as ISO data. But think what you're trying to accomplish. Just think what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the universe itself. And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer, Eliza. And conquer it you will. Now try it again. LD: The dusty lane...stays mainly...in the plane. AB: What was that? LD: The dusty lane stays... mainly...in the plane. AB: Again LD: The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. AB: I think she's got it. LD[singing]: The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. AB: By Jove, I think she's got it! Now, once again where's the dust in that plane? LD: In a lane In a lane AB: And where's that dusty lane? LD: In the plane In the plane The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. CP: Bravo! All: The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. [Frantic coding] AB: Now, once again where's the dust in that plane? LD: In a lane In a lane AB: And where's that blasted lane? LD: In the plane In the plane ALL: The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. The dusty lane stays mainly in the plane. [Matador thing with Pickering with a plot. All collapse, exhausted] AB: We're making fine progress, Pickering. I think the time has come to try her out. I know! We'll take her to journal club! [AB and CP exeunt. Liza stands there looking exultant. She begins to sing] It could have run all night It could have run all night And still have run some more. It had a thousand zones and solved for more unkowns than I've ever done before I'll never know What made it so exciting Why all at once My loops looked right I only know When he began to code with me It could have run, run, run all night! [new scene: N305 set up for journal club. There are many empty seats. Faculty are obviously missing right and left. Those that are there are asleep in their tuna salad.] All: [singing] Every faculty and grad is here. [Sardonic looks at the audience] Everyone who should be here is here. Isn't it a thrilling absolutely chilling Talk at Steward Journal Club [fall back into their tuna salad] Michiel Hogerheijde: Good afternoon, everyone. Instead of our usual talk schedule today, we'll be watching a live feed of the SIRTF launch. [wheels out a TV] LD: Come on Come on, SIRTF Come on, Come on. SIRTF! Come on! Come on, SIRTF! Move your bloomin' arse! [all look mortified except EdO, who is asleep] Michiel Hogerheijde: And since we've already departed from the usual format, we're going to let Philip Eynsford-Pinto talk about whatever he wants. PEP: [singing] I have often worked with this code before but the tau has never dropped below 2/3 before let the models fly I don't care if I can be here in the linear regime Journal referees they don't bother me because there's no other result that I would rather see let the models fly I don't care if I can be here in the linear regime And, oh The towering feeling of modelling gamma ray lines that Nickel that is decaying matches falling lightcurves oh so fine I have often worked with this code before but the tau has never dropped below 2/3 before let the models fly I don't care if I can be here in the linear regime [Immediately before the AAS meeting. AB and CP are preparing to leave] CP: If there's any mishap at the talk today, if Miss Doolittle suffers any embarrassment whatever, it'll be on your head alone. AB: Oh, Eliza can do anything CP: Suppose she's discovered. Remember Journal Club? Suppose she makes another ghastly mistake? AB: There will be no launch vehicles at the talk, Pickering. CP: Think how agonizing it would be. Oh, if anything happened tonight, I don't know what I'd do. The way you've driven the girl the last six weeks has exceeded all bounds of common decency. AB: Oh, the taxi's here. Tell Miss Doolittle would you? CP: Tell Miss Doolittle, indeed. I bet that damned powerpoint presentation doesn't work. I warned you about those microsoft products. We should've used a good linux program where we'd have known everyone was on our side. Are you so sure this girl will retain everything you've hammered into her? AB: Well, we'll see. CP: Suppose she doesn't. AB: I lose my bet. CP: Burrows, there's one thing I can't stand about you, that's your confounded complacency [At the AAS meeting. The session chair announces a string of speakers. The get up, open their mounths, and are told, "Time's up." and sit back down. Adam is accosted by a TOD LAUER in full disco attire] TL: Doctor, Doctor! Don't you remember me? AB: No. Who the devil are you? TL: I'm Tod Lauer, that marvelous boy. AB: Uhh TL: I work on galaxy structure and dynamics. I run the NOAO nerd lunch. I'm the hippest cat in AURA. AB: Why don't you have your hair cut? TL: Ah, well, I don't have your imposing appearance, your figure, your shorts. If I had my hair cut, nobody would notice me. AB: Where did you get all those panchromatic ribbons? TL: These are all the comittees I'm serving on for this meeting. The President of the AAS is here this evening. I'm indispensible to her here at these general meetings. I know everyone in astronomy. No impostor can escape my attention. Session Chair: Wall Sargeant TL: Wall Sargeant, my foot. He pretends to know everything about Ly alpha absorbers, but he cannot deceive me. All his work is done by grad students. He uses his data for screen savers! I help him pretend, but I make him pay through the nose. I make them all pay. Lackey: Excuse me, sir, you're wanted upstairs. Dr. Pilachowski asks for you. TL: Oh, excuse me. Session Chair: Eliza Doolittle [Liza talks in the background while AB and CP grab TL by the arms and haul him off.] Session Chair: Dr. Katy Pilachowski [TL sneaks in and accosts Liza while Pilachowski regally saunters in. He then hauls Liza up before the president with a Tod Lauer grin.] Pilachowski: Charming, absolutely charming. You should do a press release. [Back in Adam's office] AB: Absolutely fantastic! It was an immense achievement. CP: Dude, sweeeet. Adam, I salute you. AB: Well, the silly people don't know their own silly business. CP: [singing] Tonight, old man, you did it You did it, you did it You said that you would do it and indeed you did I must have aged a year tonight At times I thought I'd die of fright Never was there a momentary lull AB: [singing Ha!] Shortly after we came in I saw at once we'd easily win And after that I found it deadly dull You should have heard the "ooh"s and "ahh"s Everyone wondering who she was You'd think they'd never seen a scientist before [not singing, if you can tell the difference] Well, thank goodness for Tod Lauer. If it hadn't been for him, I'd have died of boredom [okay, singing again] He made it the devilish business of his To find out who this Miss Doolittle is Finally I decided it was foolish not to let him have his chance with her So I stepped aside And let him chat with her And with a voice too eager and a smile too broad He announced to the hostess that she was a fraud "Her physics is too good," he said "That clearly indicates that she is foreign" Whereas others are instructed in basic mathematics" Americans aren't" And although she may have studied" with an expert theorist from a nearby western state" She's a German Directorship Candidate!" CP: Congratulations, dude. You'll get a nobel prize. [singing] This evening, sir, you did it You did it, you did it Congratulations Professor Burrows For it all belongs to you Every single credit For it all belongs to you [CP and AB exeunt, laughing. Liza is trembling with rage.] LD: Just you wait, Adam Burrows Just you wait [Scene: Bentley's coffee house. Phil with his laptop] PEP: I have often worked with this code before... Liza! LD: Philip, whatever are you doing here? PEP: I spend most of my days here. It's the only place where I can work. LD: You don't think I'm a bad student, do you? PEP: No! I think you're great. In fact, I have this wonderful idea for a project. Let me tell you about it... LD: [singing Words, words, words I'm so sick of words I get words all day through First from him, now from you Is that all you blighters can do? Don't talk of stars in core collapse if you've a graph, show me! I know you've got r-process and such don't say how much, show me! Don't talk of flux changing with time waving your hands about how! Show me now! [Liza stalks away from the table in disgust as a party, led by Craig Kulesa, walks in.] Random grad: Good-bye, Craig. We'll have to call you Dr. Kulesa now. LD: What's going on? What ya all dressed up for? Grad: Come on, Craig, another couple hours and we have to be in N210. LD: N210? CK: Yeah, N210. Why do you think I'm dressed up like a ruddy pallbearer? [singing] I'll be defendin' in the morning Then the projector's gonna shine Pull out the stopper Let's have a whopper But get me to the talk on time I got to be there in the morning Spruced up and lookin' in me prime Chris! come and kiss me Show how you'll miss me But get me to the talk on time If I'm observing close up the dome If I'm still writing come and take me home I'll be defendin' in the morning Then the projector's gonna shine Kick up a rumpus But don't lose the compass And get me to the talk Get him to the talk For Pete's sake get me to the talk On time [Back in Adam's office] AB: Didn't she even say where to send her files? CP: I told you, she took them all with her. AB: Confound it, Pickering, she's acting like...like...an observer! CP: I'll call down to Michelle. Certainly she must know where Eliza has gone. AB: Pickering, why can't observers be more like theorists? CP: I beg your pardon? AB: Yes, why can't observers be more like theorists? Theorists are honest So thoroughly square Excessively smart Historically fair. You agree with us, we'll give your back a pat. Why can't observers be like that? Why does every one do what the others do Can't observers learn to use their heads Why do they do everything their advisors do Why don't they grow up well, like John Bahcall instead Why can't observers take after theorists Theorists are pleasant so easy to please We don't even demand you go down on your knees -Would you be slighted if I didn't read your papers? -Of course not. -Would you be livid if I set pi equal to one -Nonsense! -Would you be wounded if I assumed you were a sphere -Never Well, why can't observers be like you One theory in a million may not work out Now and then there's one with slight defects One, perhaps, whose accuracy you have to doubt But by and large they are a marvelous thing Why can't observers take after theorists 'Cause theorists are friendly good-natured and kind especially ones with supernovae in mind -If I were accurate to one significant figure, would you bellow -Of course not. -If I used an anelastic approximation for a high Mach number flow, would you fuss -Nonsense! -Would you complain if I never looked at a single observation -Never! Well, why can't observers be like us They go on about samples and signal to noise Bias and errors and other such ploys This method of theirs just makes no sense They discard logic based on evidence! Why can't observers be like me [scene:Dave Arnett's office, Dave and Liza chatting] DA: Do you mean to say that after you'd done this wonderful thing for them without making a single mistake, they just sat there, never said a word to you? LD: Not a word. They just sat there congratulating each other on how marvelous they'd been, and the next moment on how glad they were it was all over and what a bore it had all been. DA: This is simply appalling; I should not have thrown my conference program at him, I should've thrown Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler. Good day, Adam. AB: Ah, Dave, the most confounded thing- You! LD: Good afternoon, Professor Burrows. Are you quite well? AB: Now, you get up and go back to your office and stop being a fool. You've caused me enough trouble for one morning. DA: Very nicely put indeed, Adam. No student could resist such an invitation. AB: Well, how did that baggage get here in the first place? DA: Eliza came to see me this morning, and I was delighted to have her. Carmen: The president of the National academy is here to see you. Shall I bring him here? DA: Good heavens, no. I shall be excommunicated. I'll see him in the interaction area. [Exit] AB: Well, you've had a bit of your own back, as you call it. Have you had enough and are you going to be reasonable? LD: You want me back only to make up you plots and parallelize your code and build brown dwarf atmospheres for you. AB: I didn't say I wanted you back at all. LD: Oh, indeed. Then what are we talking about? AB: Well, about you, not about me. If you come back, you'll be treated as you've always been treated. LD: What am I to come back for? AB: For the fun of it! That's why I took you on! LD: And you may fail me out tomorrow if I don't do everything you want me to? AB: Yes, and you may walk out tomorrow if I don't do everything you want me to. If you can't appreciate what you've got, you'd better get what you can appreciate. LD: Oh, I can't talk to you. You always turn everything against me; I'm always in the wrong. But don't be too sure that you have me under your feet to be trampled on and talked down. I'll be Philip's student, I will. AB: Woman, don't you understand? I've made you a student fit for a Hubble! LD: I'll go and teach at a community college. AB: Ha. Ha. Ha. LD: I'll offer myself as an assistant to that brilliant Tod Lauer. AB: What, that impostor? That humbug? That toadying ignoramus? Teach him my methods, my discoveries? You take one step in that direction and I'll wring your neck! Do you hear? LD: Ah, that's done you Adam Burrows, it has.Now, I don't care that for your bullyin' and your polysyllabic vocabulary! [singing] What a fool I was What a dominated fool To think you were the earth and sky What a fool I was What an addlepated fool What a mutton-headed dolt was I No, my reverberating friend You are not the beginning and the end There'll be dark every night without you The stars will still shine without you There will be Kelvin-Helmholtz an affable Craig Foltz There will be NATSling dolts without you Math and physics will thrive without you Somehow Shu will survive without you And there will be a lane In that cursed dustly plane even that will remain without you You, dear prof Who talk so well You can go to Harvard, Princeton and Caltech They can still print journals without you Rob can still reject fools without you And without much ado we can all muddle through Without you without your lighting them the stars explode without your watching them the labs write code without your pushing it space expands the fate of the universe ain't in your hands I can pass my defense without you Neutron stars are still dense without you So go back in your shell I can do bloody well Without-- [adam interrupts, singing] By Jove, I really did it I did it, I did it I said I'd make a theorist and indeed I did I knew that I could do it I knew it, I knew it I said I'd make a theorist And succeed I did [speaking] Eliza, you're magnificent. Five minutes ago you were a millstone 'round my neck, and now you're a tower of strength, a ASCII White. I like you this way. LD: Good-bye, Professor Burrows. You shall not be seeing me again.