While digging through my e-mail archive to find a completely unrelated e-mail from years ago, I unearthed the following wonderful parody progress report (for the month of January 2012) from Julian Stirling, a PhD student researcher in the Nottingham Nanoscience Group at the time. I just couldn’t leave it languishing in the archive so have released it into the wild here. Julian’s PhD project was focussed on various aspects of the qPlus variant of atomic force microscopy (described by its originator Franz Giessibl in the video below).
At the time of writing his Jan 2012 monthly report, Julian had been working on an analysis of the tip geometry in qPlus AFM which was later published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology.
Over to you, Julian…
Is this a real force?
Is this just fantasy?
I am not sure if they
Line up with reality
Open a book,
Look up at the maths and see…
It’s not a good guess, look at condition three.
Tips are, rather big, rather long
Rather like, other prong,
Any way the tip moves, all this matters to me.
To me…
Da-dah!
I just solved the math,
Put a pen against board,
left no solution unexplored
Da-dah… This has just begun,
Because now I got to work out what it means
Da-dah woo-hooo,
Didn’t mean to stop and cheer
If I’m right there is work to do tomorrow
Carry on, carry on as if nothing’s really finished
Look now, simulation’s done:
Sends vibrations down the tine
Oscillating all the time
Hey look, ev’rybody, the way it moves,
Gotta see the graph and try to face the truth
Da-dah woo-hooo,
I don’t want to stop,
I sometimes wish I’d never solved this at all
I see a little simulation of a tine,
Look at that! Look at that! Do you see the lateral motion?!
Eigenmodes and vectors, simulate detectors! Gee!
Galileo, Galileo
Galileo, Galileo
Galileo, Figaro – magnifico
Its just a theory, no one believes me
Its just a theory, why should we believe thee?
Just take a look at a this spectroscopy!
In it comes, out it goes, will you watch it go?
Bismilah! No, we will not watch it go
(Watch it go!) Bismilah! We will not watch it go
(Watch it go!) Bismilah! We will not watch it go
(Watch it go) Will not watch it go
(Watch it go)(Never) Never watch it go
(Watch it go) Never watch it go (Watch it go) Ah
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, watch it go,
Beelzebub had a simulation put aside for me
For meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
So you think you can model me and predict how I scan?!?!
So you think you can simulate all that I am?!?!
Oh, Euler- can’t do this to me Euler,
Just gotta derive, just got to derive it in full
All this really matters, Anyone can see,
All this really matters,
All this really matters to me…
Any way the tip moves…
