At the 170th Acoustical Society of America meeting in Jacksonville, FL held Nov, 2-6, Belmont Associate Professor of Physics and Songwriter Dr. Scott Hawley shared one of his science education songs. In his song “Baby in Hertz (Simple Harmonic Motion),” the chorus consists of spelling out an equation for oscillation (as a mathematical homage to R&B songs such as “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”)
Hawley notes, “Simple Harmonic Motion is a fundamental paradigm for understanding a variety of phenomena not only in acoustics, but throughout physics.” Accordingly, the lyrics of the 2nd verse of the song point out, “This phenomenon’s so universal, I can’t overemphasize it: Any force, for small displacements, you can prob’ly linearize it!”
