Physics Poem '05

On 5th and 6th August more than 100 people turned up at Cabot Tower in Bristol to help create a giant physics poem for Einstein Year.

Poets of all ages wrote one word which summed up physics to them, launched the words from the tower in tiny parachutes and then chalked them in giant letters on the pavement to be seen from the tower.

These one word views of physics were put together to make the poem below. What one word would sum up physics to you?

Physics Poem
So what is physics?
Not physical, like anatomical or reproduction.
Not physic, like the garden.
But physics.

For me it is wow.
Electricity and upthrust.
Ultrasonic and Apollo.
There’s a computer in it,
And flight and force
And meaning.

Meaning.
What does it mean?
How does it move?
What does it matter?
Movement and matter,
That’s physics for me.

For me it means science.
Schools and exams,
Sums and ungraded.
A slow sinking feeling
Like I’m lost and uncertain.
Like I’m falling without a parachute
Or I’m tangled in the trees.

But there’s some people here
To help us. To show us
What is physics.
There’s Newton and Mrs Matthews,
Heisenburg, Einstein and Moh.
There’s even Thermoman
(Who we think is a superhero
Who swallowed a thermometer).

They can talk to us about gravity,
About energy and uncertainty.
But what about Hiroshima?
I wonder what they’d say.

In amongst the particles,
The reason and the chaos,
We remember Hiroshima.
A pause, a breath, a breeze.
To think about what is physics?

Physics is quantum
Push and pull,
Moon and stars,
Bats and balls.
It’s light, like lightbulbs.
(There’s a light turning on).
And lasers and lifts
(I wish this tower had a lift).
It’s contact and communication.
It’s universal understanding.
Some understanding of our universe,
For Esber and me.