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Title: Asteroids Named After Tom Lehrer and 'Weird Al' Yankovic

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/09/24/0...

"Weird Al" Yankovic's name has just been approved for a new asteroid -
(14331) Alyankovic = 1981 EC26 - by the International Astronomical Union,
reports Space.com. Yankovic's asteroid was championed by planetary scientist
Allison McGraw joined by "several heavy hitters in the planetary science
field, according to the Tucson Star. (Astrophysicist Steve Desch from the
School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University; Tim McCoy,
one of the main curators of meteorites at the Smithsonian Institution; and
University of Arizona research scientist Melissa Brucker, leader of the
Spacewatch program, which has discovered more than 179,000 asteroids.) The
scientists also convinced the International Astronomical Union to name an
asteroid after one of Yankovic's major influences, famous musical humorist
and political satirist Tom Lehrer, who died last year at age 97. Lehrer's
work includes "The Elements," a 1959 song in which he recites the entire
periodic table to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major-General's Song."
"He was a mathematician and teacher and also wrote math- and science-themed
songs," McGraw said. "We felt that someone who had that kind of science
enthusiasm really deserved to have their name up in the sky...." McGraw is
hoping that naming space rocks after stars like Lehrer and "Weird Al" will
cast some reflected light on two things she's passionate about: asteroid
research and science communication. Six years ago a 92-year-old Tom Lehrer
released all his lyrics into the public domain. (Wikipedia notes he'd
"largely retired" by the 1970s to become a mathematics teacher at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.) Slashdot ran a brief career
retrospective when Lehrer died last year at age 97. And the IAU writes that
"Generations of scientists have been inspired" by Weird Al Yankovic's
"comedic musical works, including 'It's All About the Pentiums' and 'White
and Nerdy'." ("I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon," Yankovic sings
in the latter.) He appears in a song envisioning a rap battle between Bill
Nye the Science Guy and Sir Isaac Newton... And in 1999 he recorded a five-
minute summation of Star Wars: Phantom Menace, sung to the wistful tune of
Don McLean's American Pie. Performing it last month in a NPR Tiny Desk
concert, "most of the audience was singing along," remembers an interviewer
at NPR. "It felt like something that was very personal to them." Weird Al:
It's one of those songs that means a lot to people, particularly "Star Wars"
fans, of course. But I mean, I see a lot of people in the audience cosplaying
as Jedi Knights and waving their light sabers... I've even heard that, you
know, they play that song at "Star Wars" conventions, and people get weepy,
you know... [I]t really hits people in a tender place somehow... "Oh my, my,
this here Anakin guy may be Vader someday later, now he's just a small fry.
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye, sayin' soon, I'm gonna be
a Jedi." Yankovic has led a geek-friendly career. In the heyday of Napster,
he released an anthem-style parody mocking the arguments of the Recording
Industry Association of America, titled "Don't Download This Song. ("Even
Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong..." "Once in a while maybe you will feel the
urge To break international copyright law... you start out stealing songs,
then you're robbing liquor stores And selling crack and running over school
kids with your car..." As a student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Yankovic
bootstrapped a career in 1979 by recording his first novelty song "My
Bologna" (a parody of "My Sharona" by the Knack) while playing his accordion
in a bathroom for its acoustics. And even the IAU acknowledged the geeky
themes in his 1999 song "It's All About the Pentiums" (a filk on Puff Daddy's
"It's All About the Benjamins". "You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half? You could back up your whole
hard drive on a floppy diskette You're the biggest joke on the Internet..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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