Physics Poem β

With apologies to Allen Ginsberg

I
I saw the best minds of past generations destroyed by physics, tired, frustrated, delusional, dragging themselves through the European streets at dawn looking for a frame of reference,
Angel-headed scholars who offered astrological advice to the emperor and his ambitious brother,
Who, as master of the mint, sought to convict counterfeiters while unlocking the secrets of alchemy,
Who used mathematics to prove the existence of god, (while some of us believe it to have spawned from Satan),
Whose demon could compute the future of our universe without error,
Who were allowed to stay in France with an exemption from the decree,
Who invented work (for which we would never forgive him, but that he taught us billiards)
Who were knighted, and became president of the academy.

II
What sphinx of integrals and cross products bashed open their skulls and ate their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Torque! Resistance! Oscillation!
Moloch! Moloch! Gravity! Energy! Force, and the non-inertial frame of reference!
They broke their pencils calculating Moloch’s trajectory toward heaven!

III
Professor J.! I’m with you in Sanders,
Where you’re madder than I am
I’m with you in Sanders,
Where you tell us of spheres in which there is no gravity
I’m with you in Sanders,
Where you insist on the existence of a centrifugal force
I’m with you in Sanders,
Where you describe the motion of a double pendulum

Footnote:
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The physics is holy! The calculus is holy! The linear algebra is holy! Everything is holy!
Everybody’s holy!
Holy the pencils! Holy the paper! Holy the calculators! Holy the computers! Holy wikipedia! Holy integrals.com! Holy Kepler! Holy Newton! Holy Euler! Holy Laplace! Holy Lagrange! Holy Coriolis! Holy Hamilton! Holy the final exam!