海角大神

With his rendition of the Monty Python classic "The Galaxy Song," theoretical physicist聽Stephen Hawking not only offers up a humorous sense of cosmic perspective, he has also added another star to the firmament of extremely silly yet highly informative science songs.聽

Even NASA was happy to learn of Professor Hawking's remake.鈥淚t鈥檚 always good to see well known people take an interest in science, technology, education, math, as well as, space exploration, and encourages others to learn more about them,鈥� says Allard Beutel of NASA's Office of Communications in an email. 鈥淎nd if Dr. Hawking鈥檚 remake informs people while it entertains them, that鈥檚 a win-win.鈥�

The song, written by Python鈥檚 Eric Idle and John Du Prez, was originally created for the 1983 film, 鈥淢onty Python鈥檚 The Meaning of Life.鈥� Both the original and the Hawking remake serve as a lecture on the unfathomable size of the cosmos.

Writing for the San Jose Astronomical Association, astronomy buff Paul聽Kohlmiller . His conclusion, most of them are in the ballpark, except for the speed of the rotation of the Milky Way, which moves at about six million miles a day, not one million miles a day.聽

In 2012, Mr. Idle performed the song again with reworked lyrics for the BBC Two series聽, hosted by physicist Brian Cox. The new lyrics focus on the scientific wonders on, rather than off, planet Earth.聽

Singing about science is a tried-and-true method of bringing the general public into the STEM universe. Here are five favorite videos (and a few extras via hyperlink) for those who just can鈥檛 get enough of being, as聽Thomas Dolby聽put it, 鈥�.鈥�

1.聽聽聽聽聽Recently, on Ultimate Pi Day, March 14, The聽聽by Hard 鈥榥 Phirm made its annual resurgence.

2. 聽 聽 If you're a Gen X'er who is feeling nostalgic, check out the 1979聽聽song, which describes how power plants operate.

3. 聽 聽 For a more nuanced view of nature's fundamental forces, here's the聽, performed by scientists at聽CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

4. 聽 The 2008 video聽聽which combines Auto-Tune with footage from Carl Sagan's 1980 series Cosmos, and the 1997 series, Stephen Hawking's Universe, proved wildly popular on YouTube when it first launched. Its creator, John D. Boswell, has gone on to produce several more聽聽music videos, including one on聽聽that features Morgan Freeman along with several prominent theoretical physicists.

5.听听听听听聽by ASAP Science might be the world's geekiest Valentine.