Thread by @solvemymaths

Today is Tom Lehrer's birthday. He's 91. 🎂
Tom is one of my favourite people on the planet, so for the uninitiated, here's a thread about him...

Tom Lehrer studied mathematics at Harvard in 1946 and later taught classes at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley and the University of California. He’s best known for his satirical comedy songwriting in the 50’s and 60’s (some of which involved maths).

His most famous song is The Elements which you almost certainly know. In it, Tom sets the names of all the elements to the tune of a song from The Pirates of Penzance, the comic opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Even Daniel Radcliffe is a fan…

Lehrer’s social criticism touched a chord with many in the US. ‘New Math’ attacked the education system through the lens of a “misfired revolution in mathematics” discussed nicely here in an article by @AlexBellos
nature.com/articles/51603…

@alexbellos He found some success in the US, but was more popular in England after Princess Margaret named him as one of her favourite artists. He became a regular on the BBCs Frost Report where he once performed this take on the decimal system:

@alexbellos Isaac Asimov was a huge fan and wrote of how much he enjoyed watching him live, saying "I haven't gone to nightclubs often, but of all the times I have gone, it was on this occasion that I had by far the best time."
Here’s Tom singing ‘that’s mathematics’

@alexbellos Tom also wrote a song about (fictional) plagiarism around Russian mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky. Mathematician Jordan Ellenberg has called it "surely the greatest comic musical number of all time about mathematical publishing".

@alexbellos On 5 June 1980 a musical based on Tom Lehrer opened in England called Tom Foolery. It went on to run for 120 performances Off Broadway.

@alexbellos Random aside 1: Tom Lehrer invented the Jell-O shot in the 1950s to circumvent restrictions on alcoholic beverages at the army base where he was stationed
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jell-O#Je…
and once featured in Mad Magazine:

@alexbellos Random Aside 2: Here’s The Elements being sung in Japanese:

@alexbellos In 2001, Lehrer taught his last mathematics class (on the topic of infinity) and retired from academia.

Happy 91st Birthday Tom!

Here’s a full concert from Copenhagen:

@alexbellos Finally, here’s a lovely Desert Island Discs interview I found with Tom Lehrer @BBCRadio4 @SarahPianoTaylo
bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00…