Physics pops up everywhere, even in pop culture. My sister’s recent visit to California brought with it some new music. I’ve spent a good deal of time listening to “Muse”, with particular interest in the album “Black Holes and Revelations”. The song “Starlight” has the refrain,
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
The song following this on the album, “Supermassive Black Hole”, is a strange dance-like tune that repeats the chorus,
(You set my soul alight)
Glaciers melting in the dead of night
And the superstars sucked into the supermassive
Supermassive black hole
The recurring theme of the black hole in these songs is enchanting. The image of invisible death, ice monoliths vanishing in the dark or majestic stars ingested by an insatiable dead star, is a stark one when the comparison is a love ignited under false pretenses.
I’ve always loved this part from Coldplay’s “The Scientist”:
I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart.
Questions of science, science and progress
Don’t speak as loud as my heart.
Tell me you love me, and come back and haunt me,
Oh, when I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing tails
coming back as we are.
That little gem helped me survive my thesis.
