# No Physics Nobel for Relativity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-physics-nobel-for-relativity/647513 "2013-01-17T15:23:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Notassmartasithought](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c0e974/32.png) [@Notassmartasithought](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notassmartasithought)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-physics-nobel-for-relativity/647513/21 "2013-01-20T05:57:40Z")
For those of you that don’t know, here’s Tom Lehrer: [http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCpGEdvjfRSmg](http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCpGEdvjfRSmg) This is a terrible hijack of a serious OP, and my intent wasn’t the hijack. But he’s so good. Any dopers who don’t know Tom Lehrer are, as said to Officer Krupke, “depraved onnacount we’re deprived.” Mods. do what you will, Okay? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-physics-nobel-for-relativity/647513/22 "2013-01-20T06:40:27Z")
Tom Lehrer did not retire from singing and writing satirical songs because of Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Prize. He had quit doing that several years before Kissinger won the prize. His Wikipedia entry quotes him about that. He did jokingly say that the award made satire obsolete, but he denies that it had anything to do with him quitting singing and writing: > **[Tom Lehrer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer)** > > Thomas Andrew Lehrer (/ˈlɛərər/; born April 9, 1928) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy and humorous songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though they usually had original melodies. An exception is "The Elements", in which he set the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan'... I don’t know what you mean by saying that he is “now remember[ed] as the inventor of the Jello shot, the Electric Company song “Silent E” and for a boring career as a professor of mathematics.” I doubt that there’s anyone who, if asked who Tom Lehrer was, would say that they didn’t know that he wrote satire, but they know about the jello shot, the Electric Company song, and his math teaching. It’s not really true that he invented the jello shot in any case: > **[Jello shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jello_shot#Gelatin_shots)** > > A jello shot, colloquially, or Jell-O shot, is a gelatin and alcohol mixture consumed as a shot. The shot is commonly made with vodka or other hard liquors. Shots made with non-branded or unflavored gelatin rather than Jell-O are sometimes known as jelly shots or gelatin shots. > A jello shot is made by adding an alcoholic beverage to the gelatin mixture, complementing the water normally used to make gelatin. The shots are named after popular gelatin Jell-O, though the term jello-shot has since ... Incidentally, he probably wasn’t a professor of mathematics at all. He taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1972 to 2001. His title was probably something like adjunct lecturer, since he wasn’t full-time and didn’t have a Ph.D. The courses he taught were one that was math for non-mathematicians and one that was about American musical theater. It also appears that his students didn’t find him to be boring at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-physics-nobel-for-relativity/647513.md?page=1)