notsyort
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2024
4:21 · 257K views · Feb 14, 2013
Flanders and Swann perform 'First and Second Law', a comic song about the laws of thermodynamics, from their 1964 stage show At the Drop of Another Hat. It sets the first and second laws to a deadpan call-and-response routine.
HN brings it up whenever thermodynamics or entropy comes up, as the classic comic explanation of the laws.
4 comments from Hacker News
The classic Flanders and Swann explanation: this video Excerpts: No one can consider themsleves educated who doesn't understand the basic language of science - Boyle's law: the greater the external pressure the greater the volume of hot air. I was someone shocked to learn my partner not only doesn't understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics, he doesn't even understand the first! : Heat won't pass from the cooler to hotter! You can try it if you like but you'd far better notta! M: Heat is work and work's a curse M: And all the heat in the universe M: Is gonna cool down, M: 'Cos it can't increase M: Then there'll be no more work M: And there'll be perfect peace D: Really? M: Yeah, that's entropy, Man.
> While they don't have the science/maths background that makes Lehrer an obvious win for the HN crowd, True, but they did one on thermodynamics this video
The claim is that the walls can be hotter than the room around it. By the second law of thermodynamics, heat doesn't naturally move from a cooler object to a hotter object, or as Flanders and Swann would put it, "heat don't move from a cooler to a hotter" ( this video ) [1]
"Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body." Thank you, Flanders and Swann! this video